If you are like me and have been traveling abroad from India say about a decade back you would have encountered these hassles. When you travel abroad with valuable items like a Laptop (its kind of funny to say Laptop was considered valuable) you needed to fill a paper work like this export certificate (shown below) at the customs counter after immigration in Indian Airports. Without this paper if you were to get your items back, you will be charged exorbitant customs duty on your arrival.
Thank God for the reforms that happened last decade these procedures have been eliminated. Nowadays customs officials pretty much don’t care what you take out or bring for individual travelers.
I found the above old one form (2003) from my bookshelf today and wondering how we lived in those era of “Red Tape”. With the recent restrictions Government of India is brining on import of Gold, probably I don’t need to wonder for long as we seem to be entering them all over again????
Remember those days very well :)
Actually an added complication if you are carrying company issued laptops were that you also had to carry a letter from the company to say that you are allowed to take the laptop out of the country. This had to be shown to the customs officer before he signs off on this form when going out..
Though I did religiously get this form everytime I did go out of the country at that time, I had been asked for this form on return only once during all of my travels..