Difference between transit and transhipment:

The essential difference between transit and transhipment lies in the continuity of records and documentation.

(a) In the case of transit of goods by the same conveyance, the record already made in the ship’s/aircraft’s manifest will continue. The goods would have to be shown in the manifest as same bottom cargo. The destination of the cargo consignment wise has to be shown in the same bottom cargo manifest. These entries have necessarily to figure in the export manifest of the conveyance. Thereafter when the conveyance calls at the next Indian customs port or airport the goods have to figure in the Import General Manifest filed there as landing cargo or same bottom cargo as the case may be. Thus there is continuity in the record and there is no chance of the control over such transit goods being lost.

(b) The position of the transhipment is entirely different. In the first instance such transhipment goods are landed in the particular Indian customs station. There after they have to be shipped by a conveyance to the destination to be transhipped. These are the following stages where care and caution have to be exercised to ensure that the goods are not illicitly landed and smuggled into India.

(i) during the period when the transhipment goods lie in the Indian customs station;

(ii) when the goods are transhipped by another conveyance to their final destination;

(iii) where the transhipped goods are destined to another Indian customs station, care has to be taken at that station for actual landing and proper clearance.