Indian airports are clearing their cargo faster than ever before. The colour-coded dashboard introduced by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) is providing some exciting figures pertaining to cargo clearance of major cargo hubs of India.
Metro cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Calcutta and others are racing against each other to clear the cargo as fast as they can. A day ago Delhi cleared 75 per cent of air cargo in 48 hours and became the fastest air cargo hub. However, a day later on Thursday, it was Bengaluru that had cleared around 78 per cent of cargo.
India is aiming to get into the top 50 of “trading across borders” segment of the World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking by the next year. In order to achieve this target, the government wants to create a competitive environment among the cargo operators.
Notably, this year India’s overall EoDB rank improved to 63rd position globally by taking a leap of 14 positions.
The CBIC has introduced a dashboard that tracks cargo clearance performance in three colour coding schemes- red, amber and green.
According to the accumulated data of time tracking colour dashboard of CBIC, only 45 per cent of air cargo gets cleared in Mumbai in 48 hours. One-fourth of the cargo takes 72 hours to get cleared.
The dashboard launched by the Indian Customs ease of doing business (EoDB) Dash (ICEDASH) is an interactive visual dashboard, which helps in comparing the time taken to import cargo clearance at various airports. Consignment blinks green if cleared within 48 hours, up to 72 hours amber and beyond that it blinks red.
As per the report, air cargo showed maximum pace in clearances followed by sea. In less than 48 hours approximately 55 to 60 per cent of the air cargo gets cleared. For maritime cargo, 21 per cent of the sea consignments and just 15 per cent of the inland container consignments get cleared in 48 hours.
Kandla is the best performer among the major seaports. In Kandla, 34 per cent consignments get cleared within 48 hours which is followed by Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust. It clears about 28 per cent of the consignment in the stipulated time.
At Calcutta and Cochin ports, it takes about 72 hours in the clearance of 90 per cent of cargo.
This move is expected to help the government identify the laggard ports, and officers, and come up with some targeted policies for improving its performance.
