The Indian Shipping Ministry is set to issue an order to make the port community system (PCS) mandatory for all Indian seaports, including public and private ports. The move is based on the recommendation of a 11-member panel set up at the behest of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in May this year to promote ease of doing business.
The panel headed by R K Agarwal, joint secretary (ports) in the Shipping Ministry, also recommended that a legal framework needs to be explored under various laws governing maritime trade stakeholders, to make it mandatory to carry out transactions through the PCS.
Mandating usage via a legal framework will ensure highly improved scores in ease of doing business, trade across borders and logistics performance index, the panel wrote in the report, a copy of which was reviewed by BusinessLine.
Portall, a logistics management application developed by Mumbai-based logistics conglomerate, J M Baxi Group, was awarded the contract by the Indian Ports’ Association, an autonomous body under the Shipping Ministry, to roll out a pan-India Port Community System (PCS) by December.
Portal PCS
Portall PCS will on-board all maritime stakeholders including major/non-major ports, container freight stations, inland container depots, inland waterways, coastal shipping, empty yards, freight forwarders, ship chandlers, bunker suppliers, non-vessel owning common carriers, director-general of lighthouses and light ships and the Federation of Indian Logistics Association, to help end-to-end trade transactions. Necessary technological changes must be made by all ports and other stakeholders to enable real-time information exchange with the PCS, it said. Portall has been asked to include, either through development or as a latch on, other functionalities such as transportation solution/ vehicle booking system for better vehicle planning to reduce congestion at ports, booking (cargo, containers, vessel slot), market place for goods and services to be taken up in association with the planned National Trade Portal, multi-modal shipments – Railways (container train operations, general cargo booking), coastal/inland waterways, single point for dues collection as the PCS will act as a payment aggregator gateway, thereby saving time, effort and money for stakeholders and quick settlement of transactions, international linkages with shipping lines, maritime registers as well as track and trace.
(thehindubusinessline.com)
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