Restrictions on gold value, too.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Passengers flying into India and carrying in excess of Rs. 10,000 will now be required to declare that amount of when entering the country.
The new rule comes with the passage of Customs Baggage Declaration (Amendment) 2014, and will go into effect on March 1. Incoming passengers to India will have to fill out customs forms that will ask them for prohibited articles, any gold or jewelry that exceeds the allowed amount, any gold being carried in bullion form, and now any cash over Rs. 10,000.
These forms will be in place at each of India’s more than 19 international airports, in cities from Delhi all the way down to Chennai. Also new to the forms will be a provision that all passengers must state every country they have been in over the past six days. Additionally, male passengers cannot carry gold worth more than Rs.50,000, and female passengers are limited to twice that amount.
Passengers will now have to detail the components of all their baggage, both check-in and carry-on. The latter type will be in a separate column on the immigration form, and must be filled out thoroughly.
Aside from these changes, however, the immigration form will be the same as it was. The changes were issued by India’s Finance Ministry on February 10. Before the new rules were passed, declarations of money and cash only had to be made when an Indian citizen was leaving the country, not when they were arriving from another.
Also being kept from the previous iteration of the customs form is mandatory declaration of a satellite phone, and single non-Indian currency in excess of $5,000 USD, total non-Indian currency in excess of $10,000 USD, and any fruits, nuts, seeds, plants, poultry, fish, or dairy products.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com