Appointment of public warehouses [Section 57]:

Under section 57 of the Customs Act, at any warehousing station, the Assistant Commissioner of Customs may appoint public warehouses wherein dutiable goods may be deposited.

In other words,

(i) the place should have already been declared as a warehousing station;

(ii) it is the Assistant Commissioner who is competent to declare a warehouse as a public bonded warehouse;

(iii) only dutiable goods can be deposited in the warehouse.

The Assistant Commissioners have appointed the public bonded warehouses and the Commissionerates have issued trade notices about such appointment of public bonded warehouses. Some of the Commissionerates have issued public notice giving detailed instructions for the working of the public bonded warehouse. From these public notices, it is apparent that:

(1) The policy of the Government is mainly to provide warehousing facility at selected places in the inland stations, having regard to the following:

(a) the requirement of trade and industry

(b) the proximity to port town

(c) availability of customs expertise

(2) These public bonded warehouses are generally managed by Central Warehousing Corporations.

The points covered by these public notices are:

(1) obligations of the warehouse keeper;

(2) procedure for warehousing imported goods for the first time;

(3) procedure for warehousing on transfer from one warehouse to another;

(4) issue of space availability certificate before accepting warehouse goods;

(5) examination of goods before re-warehousing;

(6) ex-bond clearance;

(7) reassessment of warehoused goods;

(8) maintenance of stock card and accounts;

(9) permissible warehousing period;

(10) procedure for extension of warehousing period;

(11) failure to clear the goods from the ware house;

(12) penalty for goods improperly removed from the warehouse.