A new immigration form bearing additional fields for declaration of prohibited and dutiable goods for passengers flying into India has come into effect.

Passengers coming to India will have to declare Indian currency exceeding Rs 10,000 being carried by them in the new ’Indian Customs Declaration Form’.

This form has an additional field for declaration of baggage (including hand baggage).

Travellers will be declaring any prohibited articles, gold jewellery (over free allowance) and gold bullion. Passengers will also have to give details of countries visited in the prior six days.

An Indian citizen would now need to fill up the immigration form only when he or she goes out of the country.

Old fields like declaration of satellite phone, foreign currency exceeding USD 5,000 or equivalent, aggregate value of foreign exchange, including currency exceeding USD 10,000 or equivalent, meat, meat products, dairy products, fish or poultry products and seeds, plants, fruits, flowers and other planting material have been retained in the new form.

Passengers of Indian origin and foreigners of over 10 years of age residing in India and coming from Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and China are eligible for a duty-free allowance of Rs 6,000. A duty-free allowance of Rs 35,000 can be availed by such passengers in case they are coming from any country other than the above four.

As per rules, a tourist of foreign origin gets a duty-free allowance of Rs 8,000. An Indian traveller, who has been residing abroad for over a year, can get gold jewellery worth Rs 50,000 (for man) and Rs 1 lakh (for woman) without paying import duty.

All passengers are also eligible to bring with them liquor or wine up to two litres, 200 sticks of cigarettes, up to 50 cigars or 250gm of tobacco.

Passengers of 18 years and above can also bring one laptop or notebook computer without payment of customs duty, the rules said.

Customs duty is leviable at the rate of 36.05 per cent (including education cess) on the value of dutiable goods that is in excess of the duty-free allowance.

There are 19 international airports in the country — Srinagar, Amritsar, Jaipur, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Nagpur, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Goa, Bangalore, Chennai, Kozhikode, Coimbatore, Tiruchi, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Port Blair.

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