researchers and those interested in this to get reliable data online without referring to bulk e books. A beginning of identifying reform plans was made in the Economic Survey of this year and last year. This database will help the government in carrying out customs duty reforms, said Mr. Virmani.

Customs Tariff of India is a complex subject with 11,000 tariff codes, 280 exemption notifications along with 612 entries in the Jumbo notification giving effective duties against specific tariff codes under exemption. Apart from this, there are about 150 amending notifications issued during the course of the year. The database consists of two sections:

• Main database (updated till 2nd February 2020) on 11,000 plus covers:

All customs duties (including the major ones basic,
IGST Rates,
SWS (Social Welfare Surcharge) ,
Health Cess,
Anti-dumping,
Safeguards Actions,
Import policy restrictions by DGFT,
NTBs like labeling, BIS standards,
Country preferences,
Import and export values and quantity from DGCIS)

• Line wise Tariff for the 19 RTAs and BTAs such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, China (APTA) giving effective preferential duties for specific countries/country groups. Dr H.A.C. Prasad, the trade expert and Sr Economic Advisor in Dept of Economic Affairs who has led the team behind the database told that in this year’s Economic Survey this database was used for the boxes on customs duty exemptions and revenue loss and specific customs duties. It can also be linked with other databases like WTO commitments which can be useful even in negotiations at WTO, he said.

The database is the first in India and the world. The European Union was the pioneer in developing Tariff Databases for all important countries in world including India. However, this database is the first comprehensive database covering both tariff and non tariff measures and import values in a single database with provision for monthly and daily updation.
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