PSIC certificate: what a pre-shipment inspection proves

A pre-shipment inspection certificate is the document that lets an importing country check a consignment before it leaves, using an inspector it trusts, rather than after it arrives, using an examination bay it has to find room for. The agency inspects at the loading end, records what it found, and signs. The certificate then travels with the pack.

What it certifies

That depends on the regime. In the case an Indian importer meets most often, metallic waste and scrap, the certificate has a prescribed content: that the consignment does not contain arms, ammunition, mines, shells, cartridges or any other explosive material in any form, and that it was checked for radiation and does not exceed natural background for gamma and neutron radiation. It records the container numbers and the weights inspected.

That last line is why the certificate fails so often on a desk that does everything else right. The container numbers on it have to match the bill of lading. The weights have to match the packing list. Three parties produced those three documents, at three different moments, and the certificate is the one with the least slack, because a customs officer reads it first.

Who issues it

For scrap into India, only an agency the Directorate General of Foreign Trade recognises, listed in Appendix 2G of the Handbook of Procedures. The list is finite and it changes. A certificate from an unlisted agency, however well known, does not satisfy the policy condition, and the consignment is treated as if it had none.

When it is not needed

Public Notice 43/2023 introduced a waiver: scrap from the USA, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the EU, cleared through eleven named ports equipped with radiation portal monitors and container scanners, does not need the PSIC. It needs a certificate from the supplier or scrap yard confirming the absence of radioactive material and explosives instead. The eleven ports are Chennai, Tuticorin, Kandla, JNPT, Mumbai, Krishnapatnam, Mundra, Kattupalli, Hazira, Kamarajar and Adani Gangavaram. The waiver is tied to the port: the same European lot booked to a port outside the eleven needs the PSIC again. The metals and scrap page carries the whole document set for that cargo.

What happens without it

CBIC Circular 48/2016 sets the procedure: unshredded, compressed or loose scrap that arrives without the prescribed certificate is examined in full, and the missing document is pursued under the Foreign Trade Policy. Shredded scrap with its papers in order is examined at 10%, minimum one container. Full examination is measured in days, and free time does not pause for it.

Which is why the way to avoid demurrage charges on a scrap lot is upstream of the port entirely. The certificate is issued at the loading end, before the goods ship. Once the vessel has sailed without it, every remedy left costs days, and the days are the charge.

Where Docket sits

Docket does not inspect cargo and does not issue certificates. The inspection agency’s signature is the agency’s.

What Docket does is know, from the purchase contract and the lane, that this shipment needs a PSIC and from whom; chase the supplier and the agency for it before loading, daily, on email, then WhatsApp, SMS and an AI voice call; and read the certificate that arrives against the packing list and the bill of lading, naming the container number or weight that does not agree while the vessel is at sea. The certificate that is issued late is a chasing problem. The certificate that is wrong is a checking problem. Both are the desk’s, and both are the part of the desk Docket is built to run.