PhotograPhy happens to be my current
favourite hobby. Recently I developed
interest in geocoding my photographs. By
geocoding photographs you can associate a
geographical location with the photograph.
This involves putting the latitude, longitude
and altitude in the photographs EXIF tags.
Exchangeable image file format (Exif) is
a specification for the image file format
used by digital cameras. This is trivial if
you use a GPS receiver. Last year, I had
succeeded in making necessary interface
to my Nikon D200 camera with a GPS
receiver. You can read about it in detail
at http://my-equipments.blogspot.com/
As a school kid, when Rohini was launched,
I was fascinated by satellite communication,
It was with great interest, I looked forward
to getting a GPS receiver. After doing
some reading on the net, I narrowed on
a GPS receiver being manufactured by
a Taiwan firm named Holux. The model
was Holux M-241 GPS receiver. The good
thing about this receiver is that it runs on
one AA battery. It also as a LCD screen
which displays the geographical position.
It also has enough memory to record
130,000 positions. I also managed to locate
a ebay merchant called plumbargains,
who had the best price I could find on the
internet. So on 13th Mar, using my paypal
account, I placed the order. The merchant
promptly shipped the item on 14th Mar via
EMS. With excitement I started tracking
the package. It reached Mumbai on 14th
Mar and got dispatched to Chennai. After
that all I could see that the package has
reached Chennai customs on Mar 17th.
After that it seemed a long wait for the
package to arrive. Finally 12 days later,
on 25th Mar, I receive a letter dated 19th
Mar 2008 from Office of Commisioner
of Customs, Postal Appraising Dept -
Air, Chennai asking for the following
1) Commercial Invoice
2) Purpose of import
The letter did manage to stress me a
bit as it stated that if documents are not
submitted within 15 days, the parcel will
be treated as unauthorized as per Export-
Import policy, custom act and postal
regulations and appropriate action will be
taken. Being a law abiding citizen, with
extreme worry on my face, I replied the
same day with the commercial invoice and
a letter telling the customs that the GPS
receiver will be used for my photography
hobby. I even tried calling the customs
office. But somehow I was never able
to get through to the officer. Either the
officer didn't happen to be in his seat or
my lack of Tamil hampered my ability to
communicate. After a wait of another eight
days, I again received another intimation
on 02 Apr (letter was dated 28/03/2008). To
my shock and utter disbelief, the customs
department was asking me for a WPC
licence. The WIRELESS PLANNING &
COORDINATION (WPC) Wing of the
Ministry of Communications, created in
1952, is the National Radio Regulatory
Authority responsible for Frequency
Spectrum Management, including licensing
and caters for the needs of all wireless users
(Government and Private) in the country.
It exercises the statutory functions of the
Central Government and issues licenses
to establish, maintain and operate wireless
stations. After finding this information
about WPC on the net, you can imagine
the worry I had. I felt as I have done
some major goof up in India's wireless
spectrum by ordering this tiny receiver.
At this stage I decided that this was not
right. Mobile phones with built-in-gps
are being allowed without any problem.
There are plenty of sites in India itself
who are selling these GPS receivers at
double the cost. So I couldn't figure out
how I could disturb the wireless spectrum
of India by using this receiver. But to be
on the right side of the law, I decided to
find out if WPC licence is required or not.
If it was required, I decided that I would
write to WPC and pay the necessary
license fees to operate the receiver.
I came across two articles in Coordinates
(www.mycoordinates.org) - GPS imports
- Derestricted From this article I came to
know that GPS imports was derestricted
in Jan 2004. The article also provided
relevant notifications and the ITC(HS)
Exim Code 8526 91 90. I also went
to the DGFT website, got the relevant
email addresses and wrote an email to
DGFT and WPC asking for help and
clarification in this regard. I also faxed
a letter to P.K. Garg - Wireless Adviser
to the Government of India, Ministry
of Communications & IT, New Delhi.
Somehow, it seems that all my emails went
into some kind of black hole. Never got
any reply to any of my emails or fax.
Some of my friends suggested giving
bribe. But I was sure that I didn't want
to do that. So almost giving up, I drafted
my reply to Chennai Customs, with copy
of the notifications, and Chapter 85 of
the new ITC(HS) classification which
deals with the exim code 8526 91 90. In
my letter I also mentioned that I have
asked DGFT and WPC for clarification
in this regard. Also stated that there is
no WPC licence required and the parcel
should be released after studying the
material which I have provided.
I had given up all hopes and on Apr 11th
2008, I have the postman knocking on my
door with the parcel. They collected the
duty @32.011%. Absolutely no visit to the
customs office. But the thing which made
me happy the most was the fact that there
was no bribe paid. It looks like that the
custom officials were not aware of the latest
notifications. I have now been using my
GPS receiver and hope that this experience
will help other law abiding Indian Citizens
to import these GPS receivers legally
without any hassles. Other than the fact that
it took almost a month to get the parcel and
none of the officials responded to any of my
emails, I am very satisfied that at least there
was no corruption involved in this exercise.
So my suggestion is, if your GPS receiver
gets held up in Customs for WPC license,
you need to provide all the notifications/
circular mentioned in the article by Bal
Krishna in the article "GPS Receivers -
Derestricted". Also send the relevant pages
mentioning the exim code 8526 91 90 inhap 85 of the new ITC(HS) code. You can
download that at http://www.infodriveindia.
com/content/Exim/DGFT/ITC-HS-Codes-
Import-Schedule-1/ch%2085.doc
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