Context

• Recently Ministry of Finance launched two new IT initiatives ICEDASH and ATITHI for improved monitoring and pace of Customs clearance of imported goods and facilitating arriving international passengers by electronic filing of Customs baggage and currency declarations.

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ICEDASH: Indian Customs Ease of Doing Business Dashboard

• ICEDASH is an Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) monitoring dashboard of the Indian Customs helping public see the daily Customs clearance times of import cargo at various ports and airports.
• With ICEDASH, Indian Customs has taken a lead globally to provide an effective tool that helps the businesses compare clearance times across ports and plan their logistics accordingly.
• This dashboard has been developed by Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs in collaboration with National Informatics Centre (NIC) and can be accessed through the CBIC website.

ATITHI: Custom Department App.

• The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has launched a new mobile app named “ATITHI” for improved customs clearance.
• It will also facilitate arriving international passengers with e-filing of baggage and currency declarations.
• It is expected to increase the transparency of customs functioning and reduce interface

Some of the key features of ATITHI Mobile App include:

• ATITHI app is effortless to use mobile application for international travellers to file Customs declaration in advance.
• With this application, CBIC has introduced an easy to use mobile app for the passengers can use this app to file a notice of dutiable items as well as currency with the Indian Customs before boarding the flight to India.
• The application will create a tech-savvy image of India Customs and that would encourage the business travel as well as tourism to India.
• The app. ensures access from any time at anywhere and also makes it easier for the passengers to access the custom duty information.
• In addition to that, it also supports the faster customs processes and provides multiple application support that fits the requirements of the users.
• ATITHI app can be used by all the travellers including Indian residents as well as foreign nationals those who are arriving in India by air across the globe.

Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (erstwhile Central Board of Excise & Customs) is a part of the Department of Revenue under the Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It deals with the tasks of formulation of policy concerning levy and collection of Customs, Central Excise duties, Central Goods & Services Tax and IGST, prevention of smuggling and administration of matters relating to Customs, Central Excise, Central Goods & Services Tax, IGST and Narcotics to the extent under CBIC's purview. The Board is the administrative authority for its subordinate organizations, including Custom Houses, Central Excise and Central GST Commissionerates and the Central Revenues Control Laboratory.               National Informatics Centre National Informatics Centre (NIC) was established in 1976, and has since emerged as a “prime builder” of e-Government / e-Governance applications up to the grassroots level as well as a promoter of digital opportunities for sustainable development. NIC, through its ICT Network, “NICNET”, has institutional linkages with all the Ministries /Departments of the Central Government, 36 State Governments/ Union Territories, and about 708 District Administrations of India.                 Ease of Doing Business Ease of doing business is an index published by the World Bank. It is an aggregate figure that includes different parameters which define the ease of doing business in a country. It is computed by aggregating the distance to frontier scores of different economies. The distance to frontier score uses the ‘regulatory best practices’ for doing business as the parameter and benchmark economies according to that parameter. For each of the indicators that form a part of the statistic ‘Ease of doing business,’ a distance to frontier score is computed and all the scores are aggregated. The aggregated score becomes the Ease of doing business index. Indicators for which distance to frontier is computed include construction permits, registration, getting credit, tax payment mechanism etc. Countries are ranked as per the index.