Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network

Mangalore, Oct 5 : D Purushotham, Commissioner of Customs  in his address at the Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mangalore stated that his department would give personal attention to ensure that the Air Cargo Complex at Bajpe Mangalore Airport to become a reality. 

He was speaking on 'Promotion of Air Cargo Complex at Mangalore Airport at Bajpe' at Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Thursday.

Submitting a memorandum to the Commissioner, KCCI President Mohammed Ameen said that, "Having an Air Cargo Complex at Mangalore Airport is a long pending demand of the people/trade bodies in the region. We have been demanding for this facility since 1998.

The Airports authority of India has arranged the necessary infrastructure and is awaiting the notification by the CBEC clearing it as Customs Airport," he said.He also complained that the exim trade is using Bangalore, Mumbai and Calicut Airports for their imports and exports. "This causes undue delay in hauling cargo to those Airports and perishable cargoes get damaged," he said and requested Mangalore to be declared as a Customs Airport before the commencement of Kannur International Airport.

His brief address lasted only a few minutes in which he also stated that his department has distributed pamphlets and put huge hoardings at the airport to make the public aware of the new baggage rules that came into force from January 2012 onwards. 

He also stated that information to this effect is available in the website of the department.

His brief address was followed by a slide show presentation on “Role of customs at the Airport”, which was nothing but information baggage rules to be followed by passengers travelling by air. 

Daijiworld Vilified? 

Even when the slide show was going on some officials of the customs who were sitting with the audience were commenting in sly that ‘daijiworld people should read these rules and regulations’. 

It looks as though for these officials the very presence of daijiworld reporter amidst them was intimidating as daijiworld had carried a series of articles exposing the rude behavior of customs officials at the airport who allegedly harassed passengers under the pretext of new rule.  It had also written about the unprofessional behavior of their chief, the Commissioner of Customs, when the team had gone to meet him a few months ago, to elicit information about the new baggage rules applicable particularly with regard to export of gold.

It took several months for the Customs officials to give pamphlets to a handful of assembled people and the press about baggage rules.  

After all, at daijiworld we never have any personal stake to expose the chicanery of the customs officials.  Our intention is  to educate our readers as a sizeable chunk of them work in gulf countries and travel frequently by flight and we did not want these people to spend their hard-earned money to pay as customs duty on whatever gold they bring.
 
 It is the responsibility of the customs officials to inform the people well in advance about the change in rules rather than blame daijiworld and exhibit their peevishness. 

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