9 initiatives taken to improve 'ease of doing business' at Indian ports

Ease of doing business in India has been a key focus of the government. In order to improve India's ranking in terms of 'Trading Across Borders', a key factor that the World Bank takes into consideration in terms of doing business, the Ministry of Shipping has taken nine steps to facilitate this.

Here are 9 key initiatives taken by the Ministry of Shipping:

1. From manual to e-forms: The Ministry has switched e-forms instead of manual forms. It has eliminated Form 11 and form 13 needs to be filled. This is applicable at all three terminals at Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT) and other major ports.

2. Accommodation for laboratories of regulatory agencies within ports: The Ministry has issued instructions to all major ports to facilitate and provide land area for setting up of laboratories for animal or plant quarantine, for textile and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).

3. Implementation of Direct Port Delivery Scheme: The Ministry has directed all Major Ports to extend the Direct Port Delivery (DPD) facility to all Accredited Client Programme (ACP) clients and to provide additional land area for parking of DPD containers. The earlier conditions for providing DPD have been waived.

4. Reduction in fee and charges for non-peak hours: In order to de-congest major ports, the Ministry has taken up the issue of reduction of fee and charges with Tariff Authority for Major Ports. They will fix separate lower charges for cargo and vessels related services and also give a special discount for the services rendered to exporter and importers after regular hours.

5. Container scanners at major ports: Earlier, the work of installation of container scanners was being dealt by Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC). The Ministry has now initiated the process for procurement of container scanners.

6. Delivery orders are automated: All the Shipping Lines (31) at JNPT are compliant with e-delivery capability and implemented issuance of E-Delivery Orders. Other Major Ports were also directed to implement of issuance of E-delivery Orders.

7. RFID Scheme for gate automation: All the major ports are in process of implementing radio-frequency identification (RFID) gate automation system. The tendering process to procure RFID is in progress and all the ports are expected to complete this process by the end of this year.

8. Integration of major ports filing system with Customs software: All major ports are now using advance information of import cargo online by way of accessing Import General Manifest (IGM) message through integration with Customs software ICEGATE. This process has cut down dwell time significantly.

9. Remove congestion at ports: To remove bottlenecks in rail or road connectivity (like widening of roads, development of parking areas) for faster evacuation of cargo, all major ports have been directed to take the measures such as development of parking areas, widening roads and inter-terminal movement trailers.