New Delhi, Dec. 8 -- It would be music to many ears that India's government is planning to overhaul its customs regime. The goal will not just be to ease compliance, but also bring down rates wherever they are higher than optimal, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday at the HT Leadership Summit 2025.

The income tax regime's revisions may be an example of what to expect. Just as "faceless" assessments took arbitrary harassment by officers out of the equation, we could see a similar alignment of policy and practice.

While no further specifics were revealed, it is clear that pain points in customs passage must go. Broadly, India needs a strategic rejig of import duties, with tariff rates set neither to maximize revenue coll...