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I went to the Bangalore General Post Office today to enquire about a parcel that's been stuck in transit since July. It's somewhere in there. One customs official was valiantly opening everything to determine the tax on all the $1 and $2 trinkets people order from AliExpress. 
Each of those bags contains parcels from the landing ports of Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai. Anything that arrived in the past few weeks hasn't even been recorded as having arrived. They're months behind on the backlog. Here's a sample. Chennai to Bangalore took June to September.
Why is this happening? Back in 2015, a customs official showed me a memo. All personal imports above ₹2000 (i.e., you're not a registered importer) we're to be taxed at a flat rate of 40 something percent. The official explained that this was to encourage #MakeInIndia.
The ₹2000 limit excluded the vast majority of low value imports, but I noticed higher value items also sailed through. Wait time used to be just a few weeks. The acrimonious tone postal workers took about customs officials suggested they simply weren't presenting to customs.
That system was a lottery. Once in a while something went to customs. A recent new rule removed the exemption. The duty is now 41.5% and applies even to those $1 purchases, so of course post can't be delivered until that valiant customs official taxes everyone.
A $2 keychain I had purchased on a lark showed up some three months later for a customs bill under ₹100. Valiant customs official had opened it on the taxpayer clock to confirm it was indeed a keychain. The postman was intrigued. Some sacrifices are worth it for #MakeInIndia. 🤷♂️
Correction: duty is now 41.2% according to India Post (ref photo of banner in tweet above). However, UPS thinks it is 48%. Apparently everyone gets their own rate.
A question for those in the know: what prevents an individual from obtaining an "Importer Exporter Certificate" (IEC) for themselves, to circumvent the personal import tax? What overheads does it add? (My company has an IEC, but I'm not using that for personal imports.)
