The commerce and industry ministry on Friday suggested the port authorities standardise processes and develop procedures for speedy cargo clearance to improve timelines and reduce the average release time of cargo for imports and exports. The ministry also encouraged the participants to strive to achieve the targets of the National Committee on Trade Facilitation of clearance of sea cargo in 48 hours and 24 hours for air cargo.
These issues among others were discussed during the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade’s (DPIIT) meeting on Logistics Data Bank Project (LDB) to review the measures taken by Port Authorities to improve port performance.
While chairing the meeting, Special Secretary (Logistics), DPIIT Sumita Dawra highlighted the significance of adopting a holistic approach to improve productivity of ports in order to achieve the USD 2.5 trillion export-import (EXIM) target by 2030.
Officials from the Department of Commerce (DoC), Central Bureau of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MoPSW), National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation Limited (NICDC) and twelve Port Authorities participated in the meeting.
Dawra emphasized on the need for targeted interventions to improve EXIM logistics efficiency and global competitiveness.
She said that issues related to disparity in dwell time amongst Indian ports must be addressed with the objective of achieving international benchmark at each port and port wise performance on key metrics such as turnaround time, and congestion between port and the nearest check post must be improved.
