‘Our port community system is set to digitally revolutionise export-import trade operations’

The motive is to try and bring about a revolution in terms of improvement in document exchange, reduction in transaction cost and time, improve turnaround times, improve efficiency and transparency. For us, the mission is much greater because we are talking of 12 major ports, connecting and integrating all their port operating systems.

We are talking of millions of different stakeholders who will be users of this facility, managing a cloud-based data system, making sure that we create an open platform so that other app providers, people who want to provide other solutions, can also latch onto this platform.

For us, PCS has become a national mission, to see how we can look at digital India and ease of doing business to improve our logistics competitiveness index. We will be blockchain-ready and enabled.

We are also working very closely with IBM to develop a proof of concept where we will provide a blockchain-based system to the Indian Customs to upgrade ICEGATE in the future if they so choose.

We are also working along with IBM and other technology providers to look at solutions like scanning technologies and linking it back to the PCS and the Customs to further stream line and speed-up transaction time. This comes under a vertical called Portall Future.

We have another vertical called Portall Clear, which focusses on digital customs clearance solutions, which is the first of its kind anywhere in the world. It enables stakeholders in the supply chain to use this platform for their custom clearance and solve other logistics requirements also.

Today, while we are trying to move towards single window, the biggest challenge is there are so many different stakeholders within the supply chain. They are all very fragmented, they have their own different platforms.

Automatically, the end user has multiple invoices; he has to input his data into multiple places. For the importers and exporters, the entire supply chain is so complicated because of the different windows they need to go to.

With a robust PCS, duplication of data entry will be eliminated. A lot of auto population will come up; we are also building a lot of optical recognition technology into the solution where automatically a lot of the data will be scanned. The PCS will lead to simplification, which will lead to reduction in malpractices by middlemen. This will again lead to quicker turnarounds, clearances, simplifying document exchange, and not only saving in time, but also a lot of money.

The government is very clear on having a strong, robust PCS. The first step was to make sure they had a strong vendor with strong solutions and functionality. But, what they also are clear on is the need to make sure that users all come on board. The government is today very clearly issuing various rules and notifications to ensure the users are using this ... which means that people to a certain extent are nudged to adopt this and start doing the documentation exchange and transaction functions through these systems.

It should not be a mission of only One company or One government. It needs to be a mission of all stakeholders. This PCS is not our PCS as J M Baxi; it is ours as an industry. We must all come forward at this early stage to make the most of it and make sure that we are ready for this phenomenon which is about to come.

Let us put all these efforts into motion. It will lead to a huge transformation in our own businesses. Various stakeholders will start seeing that their transaction time and costs are starting to fall, their businesses are starting to grow, the experience that they are giving to the end customer is improving. We will start seeing a sea change.

It’s very important that we create a continuous interface with diverse stake holders. Maybe, all of them could form a committee where FILA (Federation of Indian Logistics Associations) can be the validation body for whatever we are doing in terms of the different modules. Along with representatives of the trade, the PCS provider and the government, we can form another body where we are engaging for the next five months to make sure that there are no gaps, no implementation glitches.

Portall has tied up with Germany’s dbh Logistics IT A G, which is the oldest PCS provider in the world. We also have technology tie-up with IBM.

One of the reasons we have engaged with IBM is that we will also be one of the primary signatories to something called the Global Trade Digitisation, which is a blockchain platform promoted by Maersk Line and IBM and there are 22 signatories or companies from all over the world who are joining this platform as the founding members. Portall is the only one from South Asia. This enables us not only to upgrade and scale up to world standards, we will also be probably the first PCS globally to be block chain ready.

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