The 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.
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