Calcutta, Nov. 10: The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) will set up a full-fledged customs house at Haldia.

“At present, people who import goods through the Haldia port have to come to our Calcutta office for customs clearances. But with a full-fledged customs house coming up at Haldia, they (importers) can get all their customs-related work, including payment of duties, assessment, audit and others, done at Haldia itself,” said Gautam Ray, commissioner of customs (administration), Calcutta. “This will save time and money of people,” he added.

Ray said increasing import volume at Haldia has called for a full-fledged customs office at the port city. “We will soon come up with a public notice on this. We are conducting a trial run of the project, which is likely to be completed by December and the office will become operational from January,” he added.

CBEC expects a more than 40 per cent growth in collection of customs duty from the Calcutta zone in the current financial year. “Last year, the customs collection was around Rs 48,000 crore and this year, we expect it to go up to Rs 7,000 crore,” said K.P. Misra, chief commissioner, customs, Calcutta zone.

The department, however, sees a lower growth in excise collection compared with customs duty. “The excise collection in 2006-07 is likely to grow by 6-7 per cent over and above last year,” said A.K. Raha, a member of the Central Board of Excise and Customs. “The reason for a slower growth in excise vis-à-vis customs is that a number of concessions relating to excise are given to industries,” he said.