October 16, 2020: The plan is to scale up the current Port Community System (PCS 1x) to create NLP-Marine. The Shipping Ministry plans to develop a National Logistics Portal (Marine) to help exporters, importers and service providers exchange documents seamlessly and transact business in a transparent and quick manner.
The Indian Ports Association, a think tank for the country’s dozen state-owned ports, has invited bids for the design, development, integration, implementation, operation and maintenance of the National Logistics Portal (Marine) Version 1.0, a top Shipping Ministry official said.
The government is now working towards developing a revolutionary national maritime single window known as National Logistics Portal (NLP-Marine) encompassing complete end-to-end logistics solutions, the official said.
Single platform
The plan is to scale up the current Port Community System (PCS 1x) to create NLP-Marine, through upgradation and strengthening of the platform.
The proposed NLP-Marine will act as a single platform to perform all core activities of the importer, exporter and Customs broker such as domestic tracking of the shipment with notifications at each stage, undertake Customs clearance on their own, online transaction with custodians, remote electronic data interchange (EDI) system package — for Bill of Entry and Shipping Bill checklist plus EDI file generation and document management system to store all the important documents securely on cloud storage.
It will facilitate real-time information of the activities that are generally not in reach of the importer, exporter, Customs Broker, including vessel related information, terminal gate and container freight station (CFS) gate transactions.
It will also enable digital transaction for all the payments required for the clearance process of import and export like CFS charges, shipping line charges, transportation charges, etc.
It will promote paperless transactions as all the stakeholders such as CFS and shipping lines can exchange digital documents over the platform.
Ease of doing business
The NLP-Marine is being developed to facilitate ease of doing business and make India one of the most cost-effective and competitive countries in terms of carrying international trade, promote transparency in accessing information across the supply chain for all stakeholders, remove bottlenecks, empower end-users with real-time decision-making tools, give access to latest technology to all stakeholders, large and small, thereby increasing competition.
The platform also seeks to promote digital entrepreneurship by providing robust digital ecosystem on which multiple latch-on can be built.
IPA is looking to hire a service provider who will bootstrap PCS 1x — an open platform — and mould it to industry needs to cater to the national single window for all marine trade stakeholders.
New stakeholders may be integrated/onboarded as PCS 1x is scalable and adaptable to the needs of the single window platform, namely, an integrated regulatory platform for all logistics stakeholders, logistics e-market place, single window for financial transactions (business to government and business to business) and document repository for the trade.
Source: The Hindu Business Line
