Return to Hderabad - Shipping Received

Its 5th June and finally day has come, shipping has arrived in Hyderabad and I got a call from my agent that i need to go to there office to authorize the clerance.Office was at Begumpet, went there signed few one liner agreements saying that so and so of so and so company is authorized to receive my shipment on my behalf at the customs office. After that they gave me a sheet which looks like from customs office, and asked me to list all items int 3 or 4 categories and total the boxes. Since we already had organized list of all boxes with codes as E = Electronics, K= Kitchn, G=eneral, B = Books it was very easy. In fact agent himself was surprised on quickness with which we prepared the list and gave them, they responded saying usually folks take 1 or 2 hours and couple of draft sheets before completing it.

Today Morning agent called in saying that I need to be at Kukatpally for custom inpection of my goods and suggested that it may take whole day. I informed office and went to Kukatpally customs godown office by 10:30 AM with my father. In India nothing goes on without playing waiting game. My agent rep came at 1100 AM and went to to check if custom officer is in and didn't turn up until 11:45 AM. At 11:45 I went into godown to get first glimpe of my stuff after 60 days. Well all the stuff is stacked on 4 pallets and completly wrapped with black plastic shrink wrap. At outset things looked good atleast protected from water damage. On looking around, from same Worldwide shipping there were 2 more shipping addresses from GA. Around 12:20 one of the inspector came, but power was out so it wa little dark in the godown, he said to labor staff to unpack all items and arrange on the floor. Again our coding of boxes helped, I asked my agent to separate electronics and set them in seperae row and all others in different group. Also gave list of major electronics items to agent to get estimate on taxes, without any calculation he said generally it will be around 25K to 35K and if you negotiate it will come down by 5K. Immedeatly I felt he is just bluffing and my 6th sense proved to be right at the end.

In mean time while they were arranging the boxes I initiated my PR instincts and introduced myself to cutoms officer to really know how fair/unfair they would be. To my surprise, custom officer spoke very nicely and in very respected manner, we exchanged some details about family, kids, why we returned to India etc etc. After 10 minutes he left saying that he will come back along with another officer and he himself gave an assurance that there wont be any trouble and they will handle everything as per rules. After 30 minutes 2 officers came back and started inspection. One I explained the codes on boxes, he verified non electronics boxes to confirm and he went on with only electronic items. Inspection went on very smooth. He asked about prices and ramdomly checked items. One suggestion is to be pretty clear on year,make and model of all your items. Don't give an impression of guessing on these factors.
Inspection was completed in total 40 minutes. Only items he really highlighted are projector, HT speakers, Telescope and DVD player. He did not pay much attention to Car decks, Computer + LCD monitor. Following are free for one piece:

1. CPU + Monitor
2. One camera
3. One DVD player

After inspection they went for lunch and returned only after 1Hr.
I was called into office to declare my custom tax. I was very very impressed by the procedure, they had list of every possible item once could imagine including mode/year/price. Since they were convinced that my items were used and I did not hide or manipulate anything in giving informaion, they have straight away took 50% out from prices and in some cases they just put 20% of cost. I got away with no bribing at all. Another factor that helped, is that I did not travel or stayed more than 2 weeks in last 2 years. If someone travel to India and stayed for more than 2 years, concession on transfer of residence cannot be claimed. That would be big overhead, so plan accodingly in this regard. I paid Rs. 6000 in total. Once that is done, they issued gate pass and agent arraged a DCM Toyata van for pickup of my stuff for home delivery. Here is the main area which could lead to lot of damages by local labour. Here local labour are not equipped with anything, they don't have any dollies, no ramps, no lifting belts, they will hold in what ever angle they get grip and move the stuff. Only way to control them is to tip them and give the indication of good tip well in advance. Guide them as much as possbileon how to handle the stuff. I spent around RS.1000 just on tips for loading labour and also for the labour who delivered at home.

All in all whole process went on very smooth and stuff came fine but have some damages.

Few learnings and sugestions:

1. DON't compromise, go for FULL CONTAINER
2. If stuff is less to fill container, buy stuff.
3. Stuff like good leather furniture, recliners, massage chairs
are not good here. You do get some limited good stuff but cost is too much and no choice at all.
4. Get all possible kitchen ware and beddings. Especially stuff available here like non-stick etc are very cheap, and only place you see varities are in BIG BAZAAR, which are like Indian Walmart.Quality also compares to Walmart
5. Get as many varieties of shoes, clothes of brands lik Reeboks, Nikes etc.
6. On home theatre side, if you want high end system, than get one. Don't expect to get it here, you do get B&W's, Jamo, Onkyo but very very limited choice
8. Avoid books, you get all of them here and are reasonable if you go for Indian re-prints
9. Car deck is a must to get, even on very high end cars, you need to get the kit and locally available ones are expensive.
10. Things like external hard disks, CDR/CDRW etc are hard to find in around the corner shops. You need to really travel to Secunderabad or koti to get them, I suggest get enough of them so that you wont have to run for them here.
11. Lastly cables, get all types of cables. Even a normal cables I bought from US for cable TV or extension cables or speakers cables are of very high quality. Locally these ones are very cheaply made and hard to find good quality.

I am sure these learnings will help....