Nirmala Sitharaman to lay stone for customs academy in Anantapur

Training will be given to Central and State staff at the facility

NACIN entrance where Nirmala Sitharaman will lay the foundation stone on March 5 at Palasamudram in Anantapur district | Photo Credit: R.V.S. PRASAD

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has sanctioned ₹730 crore for the construction of the country’s second National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes & Narcotics (NACIN) and will lay the foundation (Bhumi Puja) for it on March 5 at Palasamudram in Anantapur district.

Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy is also expected to attend the ‘Bhumi Puja’ in the 35-acre site of NACIN on the northern bund of the Palasamudram tank.

The academy was sanctioned in 2014 as part of the promises under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act and the then Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had laid the foundation stone on April 11, 2015.

NACIN will facilitate training of 80 Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officers, more than 1,000 Group-A or Group-I officers of Andhra Pradesh and other States to work in the Goods and Services Tax section of the government.

Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Chairman Vivek Jhori, Member, Administration, Sangeeta Sarma, Chief Commissioner of Customs, Karnataka M. Srinivas, Additional Director General and NACIN project in-charge G. Narayanaswamy visited the site on Saturday to oversee the preparations for the foundation stone laying.

The academy will be used in the future as a Maritime Training Centre for scanning smuggling of contraband items and narcotics through ships and containers. The facility at Palasamudram will have a built-up area of 92,000 square metres for which tenders would be given on Monday. In addition to the classrooms and training centres, it will have hostels for the trainees, residence for the staff employed there, and guest rooms for the visiting faculty and subject experts from other cities or countries.

India has a tie-up with SAARC nations to train its officers in customs, taxes etc. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials will be trained here in addition to providing them with a mock airport and sea container landing place for real time scanning for narcotics, said Anantapur Customs Superintendent M. Srikanth Reddy.

The facility once commissioned will provide refresher courses for the corporate-sponsored candidates in taxation and customs, Approved GST Practitioners, Customs House Agents to obtain a licence, along with a special certified course for agents. All Group-I Officers from the State government posted in the Commercial Taxes too will be trained here.