Fab City back on the front page..

I am trying to be as neutral as possible on this blog and thats why I had rejected a lot of politically charged rhetoric or comments that have been posted detailing the project fraud etc..

For all you that are itching to discuss this and other issues, I am about to launch a new site that will allow everyone to discuss all these and other current topics.

How much of this is real and how much of it is political grand standing I dont know.. So, I will leave it to you..

Here is the snippet that was published in Deccan.com

Hyderabad, April 21: The Telugu Desam on Saturday released documents to prove that the State government had signed the Fab City deal with a non-existent company.TD leaders K. Yerran Naidu, Dr N. Janardhana Reddy, S. Venugopala Chari and K. Rammohan Rao termed the project ‘Fraud City’ and pointed out that the company SemIndia Fab did not exist when the industries department signed a memorandum of understanding with it.
Industries Secretary Lakshmi Parthasarathi signed the MOU on February 16, 2006 with Vinod Kumar Agarwal, the supposed chief promoter of the company. However, SemIndia Fab Private Limited was incorporated only on February 20 in New Delhi, the TD leaders said. Mr Yerran Naidu said that the total paid up capital of the company was only Rs 1 lakh though it had promised $3 billion investment. “The government either did not bother to check the company’s credentials or connived with it,” he said.
The Special Economic Zone Approval Board of the Centre also gave permission to FabCity SEZ on March 17, 2006, when there was no company by that time. It was only on May 2, 2006, that the separate company for the SEZ was incorporated, the TD leaders pointed out. “The State government allotted 1,200 acres of land worth Rs 6,000 crore to a company which neither had the requisite experience nor the financial strength,” said Mr Yerran Naidu. “This is a big scam involving many people.” He further said that the the promoter Vinod Agarwal’s first venture in the United States, Logic Vision, went bankrupt.
“SemIndia has to pay Rs 480 crore for the land, but it not paid a single rupee till now,” said Mr Yerran Naidu. “No techno company has come to start its office in FabCity. Agarwal is signing MoUs with private parties to construct hotels, spas, commercial complexes and entertainment zones.” One of the promoters, Preet Pal Singh Mahal, left the company after realising that Agarwal does not have the wherewithal to run FabCity, alleged the TD leaders. “The government has learnt nothing from the Volkswagen issue,” said Mr Yerran Naidu, taking strong exception to the way the government was signing deals.

Greater Hyderabad and the 100 Stories in the making

April 16th was the birthday of Greater Hyderabad Muncipal Corp GHMC making it the second largest city in India after Delhi. [ Originally I said that we may be #1 since delhi is a UT, I received a ton of email indicating that delhi is not a UT .. So we are #2.. thanks for the correction..] Talk is now on that that the next step is to create a GHVMC.. Great Hyderabad, Vijayawada Muncipal Corp. Why not just create a TMC - Telangana Muncipal Corp, AMC-Andhra Muncipal Corp and RMC - Rayalseema Muncipal Corp which will lead to APMC - is there a need to have Hyderabad or other local governments?.

The much awaited 100 story tower bids have been closed. It will be 6 months before the technical evaluations are done. APIIC continues to find new bakras for their projects this time its reliance and an israel company. APIIC is trying to sell 76 acres of land at 6 crores an acre. Looking at the history of Golden Mile, this may end up in some legal trouble as soon as the bidders are selected and are forced to pay their advance.

Heard that cost of construction costs would run around RS 7000/sq ft., while the developer has to sell at Rs 10,500 / sq ft. to make a decent margin and to make the project viable. Now, theres a reason why we should buy apartments at 4000/sqft ;-). As of last week, some gucchibowli apartments in good gated communities were looking for buyers in the 3000 - 3300 per sq ft. range.

Hyderabad Fab City is back in news again..

Negotiations between AP Govt and the promoter of Fab city are still on. Land allocation has come down from 1200 acres to 75 acres and has been adjusted to 300 acres now. Power and infrastructure issues have held up the agreement. Point of contention is on the subsidy for power/energy. Fab city needs 200MW per day and they want it to come at 1.80 per kwh for the next 15 years. Guess what, AP govt just signed a deal with Tatapower to buy energy at 6.00 per kwh. So, thats a 4.20 per kwh loss to the govt during peak months in 2006. Adjust for inflation and thats nothing but a giant black hole. My estimate is that it will equate to a subsidy of USD100 Million per year.

IMHO, situating this assembly and test plant in Hyderabad will not create any major incentives to the prospective customers or MNC's. Fab will certainly bring more jobs, but dont expect it to do the miracles that IT+ITES(BPO) did. In tech 20% of cost was static and 80% was human driven allowing MNC's to make huge investments. As mentioned in one of my old posts, 88% of cost is static in chip fab.. giving very little incentive for companies to move here in a large scale.

I really hope that the AP govt backs out of this whole deal and invests the USD100Mn per year in Power / Energy projects

Chiddu presents the Indian Budget ..

Finally the budget 2007 is here and doesnt seem to have a major effect on my life. My tax deduction limit was raised from Rs 100,000 to 110,000 equating to a refund check of Rs 1000. Shoes, Watches and Plywood are expected to cost less and finally I can afford a nice pair of shoes after paying my taxes ;-)

I watched this speech for 15 mins and couldnt take it after the FM announced an allocation of Rs 22 Crores combined for 4 states and also took the time to name the states getting the funds. While he was busy talking about things that didnt matter, his colleagues were picking their noses without any realization that they are on National TV. Does 22 crores need a full country's attention ?.. Dear FM, come over to Hyderabad and sell 1.5 acre of govt land and you dont even need a budget to fund that project.

Some areas like Agriculture, Rural Infra, Healthcare received high funding making it a very good budget for India overall. There was even a program to stop dropouts at 8th grade [ I was not aware that this was an issue ], and also some merit based scholarschips along with an increase in education cess of 1% which are sure add fuel to the the inflation fire.

Infosys mentor Narayan Murthy's wishes to pay taxes in India were granted when the govt decided to levy a MAT on IT/ITES sector ( Minimum alternative tax.. similar to AMT in US 1040 ) . But this tax may not hurt infosys much since it pays most of its taxes outside India. Also ESOPS now fall under Fringe benefit tax.

Market fell 540 points today and can create further panic selling tomorrow unless the government and the foreign investors do something to create the support levels. Drops of 300+ points have the potential to destabilize the Margin players who are critical to the market.

Fab City, Sem India, Semicon Policy.. What does it mean for Hyderabad ?

The hype and confusion still continue around the Fab City project of Hyderabad. Everyone was banking on the announcement of semiconductor policy in India which was finally revealed on thursday. Per the new policy, manufacturing plants in SEZS can avail 20% subsidy for semiconductor plants and those outside the SEZ's can avail 25% subsidy. This subsidy will be in the form of tax concessions, interest subsidy and interest free loans for subsidizing the capital expenditure incurred in setting up the manufacturing units for the first 10 years of its existence.

25% is exactly what SemIndia [ promoter of fabcity ] has been demanding saying that it needs atleast this much to sustain. New York state has recently granted a 28% subsidy to AMD to setup its fab in the state. So, what the Indian government is offering is no more than what a US state would offer. Korea is known to offer 80% of the costs incurred and malaysia is known to offer a double deduction for R&D etc.

In fab business companies operate at a 12% Margin irrespective of the location. About 88% of the cost of a chip fab are static and do not change regardless of the location the plants are in. So, India may serve as the testing, packing destination for a while instead of being a manufacturing site. A recent semiconductor vision summit also quashed some myths about the scale of initial operation. SemIndia's goals are to acquire fab's across the world , operate them as-is and then transfer them to India. One component that is guaranteed to come to Hyderabad is a chip design entity that will design chips for DSL Modems [ is that cutting edge anymore ?.. aren't there tons of these design shops in India already ? ], but the manufacturing will actually take place near Chennai in a 3rd party plant, followed by a semindia branding and sold to BSNL.

Recent and continuous announcements about an ATMP ( Assemble Test Mark Pack ) facility being the first in Fab City doesnt indicate that too much will happen in the near future in fabcity. No doubt, the growth will be slow, but dont be fooled by the hype around the 3 billion investments since it will be a long time before that really flows in.

While I really look forward to Hyderabad becoming a Fab center/Fab city, I do not see a clear roadmap to achieving the same from semindia. SemIndia from my research is not just focussing on Hyderabad, they have plans for other locations too..

1000 Employees Fired in Hyderabad ?

I some how missed to notice the news about 1000 employees fired in Hyderabad this week. Looks like companies are finally taking background checks seriously. Due to the serious security lapses leading to data theft, companies in India are actively supporting NSR, [ National Skills Registry ] Initiative. The following quote from Nasscom shows how serious IT/ITES industry is about data security to protect the honest people working in India.

"We will leave no stone unturned to make India the “Fort Knox” of security, positioning ourselves as the gold standard for security as we are today for quality. We hope that NSR will dramatically raise the level of security and protect all the honest people working in this industry".. Kiran Karnik - Nasscom

Today I received an email from my HR to complete the NSR registration. This has become mandatory for all levels within the organization. I logged into the site and completed the online part, but did not have the time to go to the kiosk setup in our cafeteria. I am supposed to go there with a photograph and also leave my fingerprint so that NSR can continue conducting a background check. The cost of this is borne by my employer and I will be receiving an ID card as well as an ITPIN that will allow any future employer to hire me based on the credentials validated by NSR.

Hyderabad Restaurant Review : Malgudi

Recent opening of the lumbini mall added 3 more restaurants in the Jubilee/Banjara area right around touch. These include Zaffran Laguna [ Mediterranean ], Malgudi [ South Indian ] and Basil [ Vegan Cuisine ].

The mall itself is still under construction, but this is a centrally located building very close to KBR and right next to touch. I envy the few friends who were able to grab some commercial space in this mall a long time ago.

Malgudi, a restaurant which claims to be specialized in southern delicacies, is located on the 4th floor in the mall. Interestingly all restaurants are on the same floor and malgudi doesnt have a restroom within its premises.. not sure how they agreed to that..

The interiors are very well done with traditional hardwood props and its very inviting. Once we settled down, I realized that it was the most confusing and interesting menu I have ever seen in a south indian restaurant. The menu was organized by state instead of the traditional starters, main course etc. Each page was dedicated to a state and it covered Andhra, Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Kerala

Now to the experience.. I scanned the menu multiple times to make sure that I was not missing the traditional souther appetizers and to my shock the waiter just recommended typical paneer tikka, spring rolls and other chinese starters. Followed by that we tried to order the maincourse from the traditional non-andhra stuff but were left scratching our heads since the waitstaff was of no help in recommending any of the dishes. When we tried to ask for help, they went back to recommending the Dal Makhni and Malai Kofta [ which was a story in itself.. ] instead of even trying to speak about or sell the traditional fare listed in the colorful menu.

After dinner, we decided to order a dessert, and since I had prior experience in Kerala with adapradhamam which was the only unique dessert on the menu for a Hyderabadi. As expected the waiter walked back to us to let us know that Kubhani-Ka-Meetha [ typical hyderabadi dessert ] was the only dessert available.. We decided to eat what ever they had since it was late to go somewhere else for a dessert and called it a day pretty dissapointed with the whole experience.

• Restaurant : Malgudi
• Affordability : 8/10 [ Around Rs 350 / head for a meal + soft drinks ]
• Food Score : 6/10 [ dissatisfied since we were literally forced to eat north indian food in a southern restaurant ]
• Ambience : 7/10
• Wait Staff : 5/10 [ friendly & confused about what they really serve in this place.. ]
• Overall : 6/10

Utilities, Telephone and Other Bills in Hyderabad

Typically 10 - 15 th of the month is where I receive all my Bills. So far, I have not seen any shockers but here is a summary of my observations. Many companies including mine, have eseva centers within their campus where you can pay off the bills. My driver can also handle this for me, but I decided to visit and experience the eseva facilities this week. Will update on that later...

Electric Bill : The bill was for 242 units, for Rs 752 including all taxes. The pricing for power in hyderabad varies based on tier/slab. 3.05 per unit upto 200 units, 4.75 upto 300 units, 5.50 or above 300 units. This amount is still reasonable considering we have been using our Fridge, TV's, Laptops, Lights, Fans etc along with partial usage of A/C's for the last 20 days.

Gas : Cooking gas seems to be very scarce now a days with the govt subsidized domestic cylinder going for Rs 300 and equivalent commercial cylinder going for Rs 600. So, most restaurants, hotels are using domestic cylinders causing a shortage in the market, also a rush towards installing lpg kits in auto's and taxi's is inflating the demand for cooking gas. Most people seem to have more than 2 or 3 connections and rotate their cylinders without ever running out of gas. I have not applied for a connection of my own yet, we are just using the cylinders, regulators provided by friends and family. I will soon be joining one of the groups by adding a few empty cylinders of my own to the pool.

Milk : Plenty of supply around, many diaries that have sprung up in AP including Heritage, Vijaya, Mother Diary etc., supply a lot of options in Fat Content etc. A near by store delivers our milk by 7:30 every morning. Toned milk costs Rs 16 per litre while whole milk costs Rs 20 per litre. Expect to spend around Rs 700 with delivery charges etc. There are other options from local farmers etc., for now..we are sticking to the pasteurized options until our kids get used to the change.

Internet : Expect to spend around Rs 1000. Most companies reimburse this expense unless you work for someone that doesnt put you on a leash via a Laptop. I am yet to figure out the best mix of connections to have. I have SIFY broadband at home but its been very unreliable [ recently some one cut off and stole 1/2KM of cable in my neighborhood ]. I am testing a tata indicom wireless broadband card for backup and it is working fine for browsing/email/telnet etc.

Maid/Driver etc. : Looking for a reliable driver and maid ?, good luck!!!.. Driver rates vary from 3 to 4.5K depending on whether they are also acting as your errand runners or not. Some drivers refuse to do any household chores/errands etc., so ask this question ahead of time. Maid's and Maid Services are available between 1 to 2K, but finding a reliable one is the toughest task of all.

Non-Telugu speaking junta arriving in hyderabad will realize that hiring a hindi speaking driver/maid will be the biggest challenge. A colleague of mine is paying 5K to his driver just to keep a Hindi speaking driver/errand guy around during his 1st year in Hyderabad. He says everyone including the watchman cannot speak Hindi and its becoming a challenge for his family. The local hindi speaking labor has moved into professional jobs with Security, Construction, Transportation companies and the new arrivals are from coastal AP and have very limited/zero Hindi... may not be a bad idea to buy "Learn telugu in 30 days" before you arrive.

15 mins are up.. more next time..

Dusshera, Diwali, Ramadan.. Party Time !!!

Dusshera and Diwali are now fully commercialized in Hyderabad .. Just 1 week before dusshera, special offers on everything from appliances to groceries to clothes have been relesed. I have seen advertisements for special offers on purchase of groceries too.. We are fully hooked into the western sale culture here..

With Dusshera, Ramadan and Diwali around the corner, companies are organizing many [ or should I say too many..] parties to let their employees have fun during this time. Many companies have planned major concerts, parties etc., for diwali and the element of surprise and the boasting rights go to the one with the coolest/hippest/biggest rock/other band performing at their party. For Dusshera dandia is in full swing along with dance competitions, informal and formal parties, along with a medley of sweet and savoury offerings on every floor.

I had the honor of judging a dance competition, and I was amazed at the energy and the enthu displayed by the young members of the teams. Most participation is from the new kids out of college under the direction of their senior members and these activities work as the best team building excercises. Competition was at a business-unit level and the cheering squads were in full force with their customized cheers etc. Did I mention that there was also a cheering award and it went to the loudest team [ not much has changed with the hyderabadi culture of enjoying things to the fullest along with the rowdiness of the crowd... poor MC was having a tough time controlling them ... I hope you all remember the cheers from college days in hyderabad...things like jeete ga bhai jeetega.. ; vittala vittala..; and so on and so on.... ].

I am a pain to deal with, when it comes to appreciating art or dance, but this one was really cool.. nothing traditional, nothing too exotic or western, it was a medley of everything with beats that I never expected could be integrated so well. Each team had 6 different song and dance mix with custom music mixes integrated as one show. Makeup, Music, Crowd everything made it worthwhile and I promised myself that I am never gonna miss these events in the future. The networking and socializing opportunities at these gatherings are endless. The competition was followed by dandia night, and after guzzling some extra calories through sweets, hyderabadi samosa's and sweet lassi etc., we headed down for a nicotine fix.

Other Updates :

Last week we had a party at Touch, to celebrate some wins/growth of the organization. Party started 1 hour late but quickly gained momemtum. I need to get better at this time sense thing in India.. if the invite is for 7:00 .. dont even think of going there until 7:45 - 8:00. Touch had great ambience, simple interiors that give you a feel of an wide open space but at the same time providing the space to relax and connect with the party goers. Excellent Drink offerings and Staff, but food was average [ may be it has something to do with the menu picked by our event organizer ] .. Dessert Bar as always was my favourite.. I am not sure what I ate, but I had multiple servings.. Drinks, DJ and Music made up for the zing missing on in the food buffet.


Another team of mine had their quarterly bash at Runway-9 or something like that, I couldnt make it due to a customer meeting, but will update you the next time I am there.


Haleem is the speciality of this season in Hyderabad. Yesterday I was reading that Hyderabadi Haleem is now being exported to the Mid East and is a crowd favourite in most restaurants there. To enjoy/expose this delicacy of Hyderabad to my team, I am organizing a haleem party at Pista House near Hitec City.. [ depending on # of confirmed attendees, we may either go there or have them deliver it to our break area] this restaurant is supposed to be one of the best ones for haleem in Hyderabad and also has an outlet closer to the Hitec city area. We are heading there in 2 weeks .. and will update you soon about that.

Next week I am headed to a southern state for an offsite workout/gathering of leadership teams and may not be updating the blog... Until then...
Happy Birthday T and Happy Dusshera to all of you

2 Months since My Arrival

Its exactly 2 months since I arrived in hyderabad... No regrets, no challenges to deal with, enjoyed every bit of my stay here... bottomless biryani buffets... litres of teachers and blenderspride scotch [ may be thats a little exaggerated ;-) ] and the ability to re-live in a fun culture of dakhani [ hyderabadi ] phrases including my favourites "maakki kiri kiri" and "bindaas". Today I really laughed when a team member said "pareshan mat lena sir....", to calm me down about an issue....

In the last 60 days, I was able to complete the basic tasks like renting a house in hyderabad, move in, get connected, hire a maid+driver and move my family here. Couple of things I am really behind on are my son's school, drive on my own [ need to figure out how to get a license and insurance ], physical fitness / gym and a pet project I started while I was in the US. I hope to get on track by the 100th day or so..

With the global nature of the business that Indians deal with, work hours are not well defined. The higher you climb the ladder, the worse it gets.. though not a daily activitiy, you are expected to participate in calls, reviews etc., with australiam/APAC customers in the morning, Europeans in the afternoon and America's in the evenings. So a workday of mine goes from 11am to 7pm on some days to 2pm to 10pm on somedays. The best part is that you get to slack off on both Indian as well as Customer Holidays ;-). Companies have adapted well to this global demands with extensive work from home options, including wireless internet, vpn, blackberries/other devices that are tied into the company phone networks so that you have a virtual office extension that comes with you all the time.

Some of you asked me about lunch etc.. so here it goes. Cafeteria's at work are very well maintained / managed in many of the large companies. Food goes from the traditional thali between Rs 25 to 50 depending on the options along with traditional offerings like biryani, curry+paratha etc. at less than Rs 50 for a large serving. Cafeterias also have free coffee/nescafe/tea machines along with a coffeeday express or similar store that offers gourmet coffee between Rs 10 to 30 depending on your choice. Other standard things include a bakery counter where you can buy puffs, rolls, breads, sandwiches between Rs 5 to Rs 20, and a fruit bar that offers a medley of fresh fruits from Rs 10 to Rs 20 based on the size of serving. In some locations of our organization, food is free for the basic thali type and you pay extra for others. In some organizations like google, its all free including the gourmet varieties of everything and anything.

More later...

Hyderabad Italian Food : Little Italy

I went to this little italian vegetarian restaurant called Little italy near Jubilee Hills Checkpost in Hyderabad. I was introduced to this by a close friend of mine.. I know, a lot of you are thinking, finally he is talking about vegetarian stuff.. I am a big fan of vegetarian dishes as long as it has atleast a starter that is non-..

It has a very well designed interior with the smallest restrooms I have ever seen in a restaurant. If I remember from my last visit to Hyderabad, this place was used for a parking/cellar for the building above. Looks like they have turned the parking space into a restaurant and the space was so well utilized that their power generator sits at the edge of the road. I Wonder if they will convert to a take-out joint the next time MCH expands this road.

First Visit : Menu was extensive and has too many choices to pick from. We ordered a couple of thin crust pizza's [ thats the only kind they seem to make ] along with an order of Eggplan parmesan [ who else would order that ? ]. The pizza came out well, but the crust was burnt in some places making it taste wierd. A friend ordered with black beans and it sucked, I ordered a Pepper-oni pizza I ordered [ not the real pepperoni, its peppers on the pizza.. duh what would you expect in a veggie joint ? ]. Reasonably priced, Nice place, but I could not order any drinks since it was Oct 2nd, which is a dry day in India.

Second Visit : It was my team's choice to meet here for a going away party and no one knew that it was vegeterian until one of them said.."Can we have a chicken starter to go with our drinks..". One of the team members decided to order grilled mushrooms in olive oil and it sucked big time... On the second round, the manager recommended that we go with the onion rings [ nothing italian about them.. but were good with the drinks ] followed by Chips + Salsa.. [ you heard it right.. eating chips and salsa at an italian place .. ]. Main course again was a combination of pizzas and they were delicious this time. [ We took extra care to avoid the ones with beans ]

When it was time to pay the bill, manager informed us that the credit card machine was down and that he could not accept the corporate credit card. After a few tries he gave up and offered to pick up the payment at the office the next day. It would have been a major pain to let him into the building etc., and we pooled the cash to pay off the bill.

Overall we enjoyed the food, but I would not recommend the outside seating since you are pretty much on the road and can hear and smell the automobiles around you.

Hyderabad Subway Experience : Did I tell you how much I love Ohri's

After devouring tons of Hyderabadi Dum biryani+mirch salan, and gobs and gobs of kubanee ka meetha, I finally took a u turn and tried the subway in Hyderabad at Jubilee Hills.

Everything from the baking ovens to the wrapping paper looked like they were imported or made for subway in India to look exactly like the ones in the US. I looked through the menu and found some interesting knock-offs like "Chicked Meatball", "Roasted Chicked" etc., On the local favourites menu were the Tikka Sub etc., that attracted my attention and I ordered one of the 6" tikka sub on wheat bread.

Wheat bread was cut and the attendant pulled out a small cup of pre-cooked chiken tikka and heated it up in the microwave. After that the normal toppings of lettuce, tomato, onions were followed by a gooey-yellowish-brown liquid which he referred to as mustard followed by a coating of mint-mayo. I ordered a nestea w/lime [ close cousing to the southern sweet tea.. which I am a fan of ] to go along with the sub.

Now to the um.. um.. ummmm.. part.. The taste was as expected... but I could not taste the chiken or the tikka due to the size of the bread compared to the amount of chicken that was in my sub. May be I should try their tuna next time to see how that goes.... and the tikka sub... I prefer the Ohri's Tandoor chicken sandwich anyday over the Tikka Sub.

This shop at jubilee hills, has a move-n-pick icecream store integrated into the same premises as the subway and I tried a scoop of their banana icecream, which I thought was creamy but slighly bland for my taste.. My all time favourite in hyderabad so far is Ohri's "Awful Awful" sundae .. [ I was introduced to this by my friend's daughter sne ] and I am yet to find something that can beat it..

Next Post.. Little Italy,a italian-vegeterian restaurant .

Hyderabad Customs : Container Clearance

Happy Birthday G and H!!! ...

The most dreaded time of receiving the goods has arrived. .. thanks to the excellent work done by my packers and the unloaders.. I am happy to report that everything made it without a single dent or scratch..

The customs clearance process has 3 steps followed by unloading and unpacking.

1. Destuffing of the container and 24 hr cooling off period
2. Examination and Duty Payment [ Officer will go through the boxes and estimate the duty on the items he thinks are dutiable ]
3. Delivery / Release [ Once duty is paid, they release your items to the delivery agent ]
4. Unloading at the House
5. Unpacking [ I did not sign up for this service.. since I had extra help at home ]

Tip1 : dont get into this on your own, have a 2 to 3 helpers along with you to make this easy. Too many things will happen at once and with 10 unloaders working on your consignment, its very likely they will drop, drag and do everything possible. Remember its a fixed price contract for them..

Tip2 : Have an excellent packing list, try not to put a value in there if possible but do highlight the year and model for electronics since it makes it easy to negotiate the value of the items while the officer is inspecting

Tip3 : All labor groups have an expectation of a tip, so talk to them before they start the work and set the expecation of a better tip if the work was done to your satisfaction. I spent 1200 Rs of tips for destuffing, loading and unloading and it was well worth it since they put in extra time and effort to do it right.

Tip4 : This was a very obvious risk that the inspector was taking by randomly inspecting the boxes, by law they are supposed to look through all boxes.. Do not bring alcohol, but if you do, it may be wise to declare it. My inspector asked me multiple times about it and indicated that his colleague has been reprimanded recently when a box with bottles was dropped by the loaders and was caught by the warehouse security before it left.

Overall, the customs inspectors were very friendly but lazy, they were so busy reading the newspaper until they got a call to expedite my container release..

... Now to the story.. ;-)

On wednesday, it was the ganesh nimajjanam and the shipping agent indicated that it may be a better idea to go to ICD ( Inland Container Depot ) located in the moosapet area on thursday. Destuffing was planned for wednesday but we were unable to find the labor or the officers that could sign off on breaking the container seal due to the holiday in Hyderabad. Due to other plans I had for thursday, I scheduled our family driver as my proxy [ a real task master ] to represent me at the destuffing area. Destuffing took around 3 hours, and he offered them a bonus ahead of time in return for not dropping boxes or dragged the furniture on the warehouse floor. Everything went well, and the unloaders even put some extra blankets below the furniture in the warehouse to earn their bonus etc.

Friday was the day for examination and duty payment. The Assistant commissioner who was responsible for the office was on leave and the rest of the office decided to show up late. I went in at my scheduled time of 11:30 and no one showed up until 12:30. At 12:30, I couldnt take it anymore and called a family member who knows a few higher ups in the customs department and after a few calls, everything started to move on its own, with everyone taking extra initiative to get things closed asap.

I had 3 helpers with me who were responsible for keeping their eyes on the consignment and the parallel processes. During examination, all boxes will be opened, doesnt matter what's in it. So, I left 2 of my helpers to watch the labor that was working to get the consignment ready for inspection. This included lining up the boxes in a row and opening them so that the customs official can look into the boxes randomly. While this was going on, I sat with the examination officer and identified which boxes had the items I wanted to declare, primarily electronics and valuables. They were not worried about used furniture or clothes.

One important tip is to create a very detailed packing list while the container is being loaded. It helped me a lot since all the boxes with electronics were marked with a E, the official had an easy time finding them and estimating the values etc.. Also note the year and model if possible in packing list, so that they can estimate it faster. I had to pay 15000+ in duty, which was much lower than I expected.. [ considering I had good bit of electronic stuff with me .. ]. In some cases, the customs agent looked through cases that had very basic items to make sure that it really had what is listed in the packing list. He stressed on the importance of not taking the risk with hidden alcohol multiple times and then signed off on the duty estimate. Rest of the process was handled by my helpers, they paid the challan in the extension counter of ICD, got the Assistant commissioners signature for release and then loaded up the container into 3 DCM trucks.

Trucks reached home at around 9pm, due to a union stipulated dinner break between 7:30 - 8:30 for the unloaders. While my team watched and made sure that nothing was being dropped or dragged by the unloaders, all items were brought into the house [ 1st floor ]. One challenge was with our 3 seater Leather sofa, that would not fit in the stairwell. They left it for the night in my neighbors house and returned in the morning to lift it through the balcony. Since I did not sign up for the unpacking service, I utilized my helpers to unpack the furniture and other major items, which produced a ton of waste ( 80 wrapping blankets + 100 empty boxes ) on the first day itself.

Overall, it was a tedious process, but leveraging your contacts for the right purpose [ Due to the audits around ICD, they are willing to only get involved in expediting the process.. which I thought was fair.. ] and having extra help on hand can make this process easy.