New Delhi: The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has announced that the Electronic Cash Ledger (ECL) platform is functioning normally and receiving greater acceptance.
ECL is a non-interest-bearing deposit with the government for payment of taxes and aims to ease compliance.
CBIC had from April 1 onwards, decided to enable ECL in phases for importers and exporters.
As per Section 51A of the Customs Act, 1962, every assessee has to maintain an electronic cash ledger in the customs portal.
The clarification came from CBIC after some problems were witnessed in the platform by users initially.
“We are happy to announce that ECL is moving towards normalcy and is receiving more acceptance amongst users,” CBIC tweeted.
To prove that the platform is moving towards normalcy, CBIC informed that users have done a total of Rs 1,200 crore customs duty payments using ECL on Thursday itself.
Also 18,064 e-wallets have been activated since the launch of ECL on April 1, 2023, it added further.
Till April 20, 27.78 per cent of challan payments were made through ECL rather than netbanking or NEFT or RTGS.
“We have observed a 99.9 per cent success ratio for payments made through ECL vis-a-vis other modes (NetBanking or NEFT/RTGS) on April 20,” CBIC tweeted.
Only 203 wallets continue to be blocked as on April 20, due to the ongoing reconciliation exercise but will be unblocked soon, it added further.
The department has exhorted taxpayers to support the new gateway in order to make it more convenient and user-friendly.
–IANS