Paperless trade(eTrade) in India

Presentation for UN/CEFACT Plenary16 – 17 Sep. 2008

T. A. Khantakhan@nic.in

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Outline

1. Introduction

2. eTrade Initiatives

3. eTrade - The Project 4. Use of UN/CEFACT Standards

5. Achievements and Task Ahead

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1. Introduction

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1.1 Department of Commerce

• Deals with the country’s external trade and all matters connected with it.

• Formulates policies in the sphere of foreign trade.

• Exports of merchandise goods (1995-96) - $31.8 billion

(2007-08) - $159 billion

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1.2 Need for Paperless Trade

• Substantial progress on policy front.

• Focus required on streamlining and standardisation of procedures.

• Large number of agencies involved in clearances for international trade.

• Increase in exports to eTrade enabled countries.

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1.3 Challenges

• Multiple entry/exit points and complex

management issues

• Cumbersome procedures

• Enormous documentation

• Need for extensive process re-engineering

• Different stages of automation

…. Contd.6

Challenges

• Different priorities of organisations

• Lack of awareness on eTrade

• Non participation in community systems

• Adoption of standards

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2. eTrade Initiatives

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• On 14 June 2000: Minimum agenda for e-Governance developed.

• GOI approves the National E-Governance Action Plan for implementation during the year 2003-2007

• Mission Mode Projects at the center, state and integrated service levels to create a citizen-centric and business-centric environment for governance included.

... Contd.

2.1 eGovernance Initiatives

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Electronic Government Procurement as a mission mode project with broad objectives :– Introduce procurement policy reforms – Improve efficiency of procurement (time and cost)– Standardization, streamlining and automation of the procurement processes – Create a conducive legal framework – Create a procurement framework, which is workflow based, easy to operate, seamless

and leading to paperless process management – Provide equal opportunity to all vendors eliminating areas of discretion– Implement standard procurement processes using generic procurement platform(s)– To ensure adoption of adequate security measures (audit trail, authentication, integrity,

non-repudiation, secrecy etc.) practices in e-procurement transaction– Undertake a comprehensive capacity building program across the government

organizations• Publication of procurement information mandatory (notices, Tenders,

Contracts/Orders etc.) on government procurement portals • e-Procurement mandatory above a decided threshold value (Rs. 25 Lacs in GoI) • Development of a generic e-Procurement solution by NIC for wide adoption by any

Government department/organization

eGovernance Initiatives

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• Department of Commerce selected as the nodal agency

• Process Re-engineering• National standards • Education and awareness programs• Pilot projects for private sector• eTrade project• Portal for single point interface with all

community partners

2.2 Strategies

3. eTrade - the project

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• Efficient, transparent, secure electronic delivery of

services by trade regulatory/facilitating agencies.

• Simplify procedures and reduce the transaction

cost and time.

• Introduce UN/CEFACT standards and practices

3.1 Objective of the project

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3.2 The Indian eTrade Community

DGFTCustoms/Central Excise

Airlines

Shipping Agents

Port/CONCOR

Importers/Exporters

CHAs Indian Railways

AEPC/Texprocil

DGCIS

RBI

Banks

ICD/CFS

(Income Tax, ECGC, EXIM Bank, EIC, APEDA, MPEDA, State/local

authorities) AAI14

1. Customs (35 locations)2. DGFT (35 locations)3. Port Trusts (13 locations)4. Airports (8 locations)5. Container Corporation (38 locations)6. Banks (106 locations)7. RBI8. Airlines 9. Indian Railways (1)10. Export Promotion Organisations11. DG commercial Intelligence / Statistics 12. Inland Container Depots / Container Freight Stations (50)

3.3 Project Spread

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ICEGATEEDI messaging and Web Services

ICESCore Transaction

Processing

LRMSTransaction Risk Processing Other Small Apps

viz. in Chennai

FTP over WAN

NRMSNational Risk Control

Updation Server‘Kandla’ server for directory updation

DB linkSQL net

InternetInternet

Customs Officer On LAN

Trade UserFiles EDI messages

File uploadHTTP/ SMTP

Institutional UserEG. DGFT

MultipleProtocols

DB linkSQL net

MESMessage Exchange with

Banks & Custodians

Banks Ports

FTPover LAN

Service CentreServer for hosting the ApplicationICENET

ICENET

ICENETICENET

ICENETICENET

Customs

FTP over LAN

FTP

Directorate General of Foreign Trade

DGFT Network

NetWork Web Server

DGFT OFFICES

Process on Main Server

NetWork

EXPORTER

NetWork

NetWorkCUSTOMS

BANKS

status

Bank Receiptsand BRC

Lic. Details

Ship.BillBill of Entry

IEC,BL,LIC,EOAppl

.

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Sea Ports

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CONCOR

E-Token

Digital Certificate

Client Pc’s

Firewall

ONCOR CONCOR Web Server Database Server

Bank Server’s

Airports

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HCLVAN

Internet Gateway for

Trade Partners

Other Partners

Airlines

CHA/IATA

Banks

ICMS

DEL

ICMS

BOM

ICMS

CCU

ICMS

MAA

Lea

sed

Lin

eIS

DN

line

fo

r B

acku

p

AAI Hub

AAI Hub placed at its Hqrs. 20

Banks

Exporters/Importers/agents

RBI

21Customs PortsCONCORDGFT Airports

Bank B Bank N

.. . .

RTGS

Bank A

4. Use of UN/CEFACT Standards

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1988 : Adoption of Aligned Documentation System based on UN Layout key in

1991 : SW for pre-shipment export documents based on UN Layout key.

The migration to United Nations Electronic Trade Documents.

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• 1996 : EDIFACT declared as national standard for EDI.– Message development groups constituted for

Customs, Ports, Airports, Banking and Private sector

• 1995 : Establishment of Article Numbering & Bar Coding Institution (GS1).

• 1998 : SubCommittee on UN/LOCODE constituted.

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5. Achievements and Task Ahead

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Uniformity and simplification of procedures Re-engineered inter agency interfaces Standards integration Integration of eTrade community through a portal Significant reduction in transaction time of services like license application is disposed in 6 hrs. as compare to 45 days Reduction and early detection of frauds

5.1 Achievements

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• Dispensation of manual systems.

• Smaller locations to be covered.

• Cross border paperless trading to be incorporated.e.g.– Electronic certificate of origin project– Customs declaration

5.2 Task Ahead

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