History
Customs (Prev.) Commissionerate, Lucknow, came into existence with effect from 02.06.1994, following bifurcation of the erstwhile Customs (Prev.) Commissionerate, Indo-Nepal Border, with HQ at Patna. The Jurisdiction of Lucknow Commissionerate extends over the states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand covering international borders of 776 Km with Nepal and 350 Km with China through intractable hill areas and dense forests. The twin objectives of the Commissionerate are Prevention of smuggling emanating from across the porous Indo-Nepal border, and to facilitate trade with Nepal and China through its 14 LCSs and trade with other countries through 06 ICDs.
Anti smuggling work mainly consists of the prevention of among other things, illicit export of goods to Nepal through the illegal routes at the long-unmanned border; illegal import of third country origin goods from Nepal; deflection of the third country origin goods being imported / exported by Nepal under the CTD facility via Indian territory into Indian market; drug trafficking and smuggling of FICN etc. The anti smuggling work also includes keeping check on evasion of customs duty in terms of under valuation and mis-declaration of Import goods and prevention of wrong availment of incentives in case of export goods.
Most of the trade with Nepal is carried out through the mutually agreed and approved routes (LCS), manned by Customs on both sides.
The Commissionerate also has three international Airports at Lucknow, Varanasi and Kushinagar. From Lucknow different Air Lines are operating for Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Jeddah, Riyadh, Dubai (UAE) & Sharjah and from Varanasi airport flights operate to Sharjah and Kathmandu respectively. Further from Kushinagar Airport, occasional pilgrim flights are operating for Sri Lanka.
Subsequent to the reorganization of Custom Department vide Notification No.82/2017- Cus (NT) dated 24.08.2017 (as amended), this Commissionerate has also taken over all Customs related work w.e.f. 15.01.2018, which were hither to performed by CGST Commissionerate of Lucknow Zone, which includes implementation of self sealing/ factory stuffing of containerized export cargo, fixation of brand rate of drawback, Duty drawback for supplies made by DTA units to SEZ, Licensing of Customs bonded warehouse etc.
