- Honest Officer
- 11 years ago
- 5456 views
Positive descretion by customs official
Often times we hear stories of customs officials asking for under the table payment or harassing travelers on account of customs duty. I had a positive interaction with customs official on my arrival last time I arrived at Banalore airport from Singapore. In my uggage had some 4-5 prototype circuits with me which i plan to use in India for making affordable medical devices. They are for personal testing and had value of around 200-300 USD in total. When i explained to the official the what these were and what was there purpose - he suggested that i might have to pay duty on these - but let me pass knowing the purpose for which were being brought in.
Desecration is normally misused for personal gain but in this case the official clearly took a different stand. I thank the official for his support and hope a more reasonable regime of import duties can be brought in so that it people in same boat as me can import prototypes for research and development more freely. India clearly needs a lot of local innovation in both medical devices and electronic equipment.