70 ports in India to be connected electronically

By siliconindia   |    1 Comments
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Bangalore: The Indian government has decided to connect 70 ports across the country electronically by the end of next year. This move will help ports reduce the cost per transaction. The Commerce Ministry is promoting the use of electronic systems such as EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) which helps in exchanging electronic messages between Customs and the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT). "For e-trade, the DGFT is connecting ports and locations. It is 34 for now and we hope that by next year-end, at least 70 ports will be connected. All these locations will be EDI enabled," said Anand Sharma, Commerce and Industry Minister. While sending a consignment abroad, exporters have to deal with different agencies like custom department, DGFT, port authorities and state departments. This procedure adds to the transaction cost which varies across sectors and range from five to eight percent of the freight on board value of the consignment. Sharma said that the transaction costs can be reduced if there are lesser delays, faster movement of goods, simplified procedures (for paper work) and on-line approvals (of applications for duty refund and other things). Initially, the project will be implemented in five states including Maharashtra, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. "The government and industry will be connected through e-business. By 2015, the entire country will be covered, including all services," said Sharma. The project aims to create a customer-centric environment and provide the business community with speedy access to information and services. The Commerce Ministry has awarded a 10-year e-governance contract to Infosys to develop an e-business portal, which will give businessmen easy access to government information. India's exports, which grew by a just 3.4 percent to $168 billion last fiscal, have been falling since October 2008.