Octroi vigil at railway stations

BMC plans surprise raids on goods sneaked into the city after evading duty

Having beefed up vigilance at the octroi nakas, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has now decided to conduct surprise raids at railway stations, to seize goods being sneaked into the city using the railway route.

Eight such vehicles carrying an assorted consignment of clothes, gift items and electronic goods were seized from entry points at the three railway stations of Bandra Terminus,
Bombay Central and CST on October 26. BMC’s vigilance officer on special duty SR Rana, who led the raiding party, also intercepted another vehicle at Pydhonie soon after it had loaded goods reached by train at the Bombay Central railway station on Sunday morning.

With the BMC beefing up vigilance at all the five octroi nakas in the city, civic officials say evasive importers often route the transportation of their consignments using trains.

Keen to plug the route, the BMC has drawn up a contingency plan to conduct periodic raids at railway stations.

On Friday, acting on a tip off, three vigilance teams seized materials which were being unloaded in trucks stationed at railway stations.

While four trucks were confiscated from outside the Bandra Terminus, three other vehicles were caught at Mumbai Central and one from the CST station.

Civic officials, who were yet to evaluate the contents of the trucks, said that the goods were brought from Dehradun, Gujarat and Calcutta.

Four vehicles were taken to the Byculla cement godown, four others at the municipal garage at Dadar and one at the K (East) municipal ward.

While BMC’s decision to tighten security at the octroi nakas had led to a further reduction in instances of octroi evasion and more catches- ten vehicles were confiscated at the five nakas over the last four days, it has also ensured slow movement of traffic flow into the city.

In fact, the situation is particularly severe at the Dahisar and the Mulund octroi nakas, where queues of vehicles lined up for several kilometres on Sunday.

At Dahisar, for instance, the octroi clearance is only operating from one window instead of the four put up. This has been having a huge cascading effect on the vehicles entering in the city for the past fortnight.

“The line of vehicles often extends right up to six kilometres leaving hundreds of vehicular commuters stranded,” said local resident advocate Ganesh Sovoni.

While BMC’s deputy assessor and collector GT Mandve conceded the long lines at octroi nakas, the octroi department has begun filing criminal cases against importers, agents and transporters caught for duty evasion.