Govt plans e-trading across departments

The department of commerce plans to set up an electronic data interchange (EDI) for trade (eTrade).

Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh said, "After the successful digitisation of Directorate General of Foreign Trade, we are implementing eTrade in various departments, including Container Corporation of India, customs, central excise and customs counters at ports, airports and banks."

Nearly, 80 per cent of work towards digitising is over. "We are gradually moving towards a paperless environment. The department will carry out all its work online in 4-6 months," he said.

But there's a need to put in more efforts at airports and ports, the minister said. The reason being the differences between the Airport Authority of India and Air-India over the movement of cargo through the Air Cargo Complex.

The initiative would enable payment of customs duty through net banking. The ministry is also working on trials for net banking with the Punjab National Bank.

The EDI system is also being introduced at 12 locations at Kandla, Mundra ports, Ahmedabad airport, inland container depot at Bangalore, Ludhiana, Hyderabad and Pithampur, Indore for online message exchange with community partners.

The digitisation process is undertaken by the National Informatics Centre (NIC). NIC Deputy Director General T A Khan said, "We would also be upgrading the hardware in some areas in order to go fully digital as soon as possible."

This would enable round the clock clearance of goods through various points across the country."

Going online would also facilitate cross border paperless trade. But first our aim is to make the domestic trade paperless and the trade would be hassel free, quick, fast and transparent, he added.

The main benefit of paperless trade would be quick clearance of the consignment and documents and quick payments from the concerned party, Khan said.