KOCHI: In a development that would put the Indian ports on the defensive, the Centre for WTO Studies on trade facilitation in India has come up with findings that ports in India lags behind their international peers in terms of efficiency. It takes a total of nine to 10 days for a ship to complete the formalities in any of the Indian ports, by in countries like Singapore, the entire process will be completed in a couple of hours. The poor show of the country’s ports reflects well on its ranking also. The World Bank’s report on ‘Doing Business’ ranks India in the 109th position in terms of trading across borders, far below its neighbours China (60), Sri Lanka (53) and Pakistan (75). The major source of delay in the delivery of goods from Indian ports is the frequent error found in the filing of IGM. Once an error comes up in the IGM, it will have to be refiled after rectification causing serious delay in the delivery. More importantly, the errors dissuade advance filing of IGMs, the study pointed out.“The IGMs can be filed in advance even before the arrival of the ship, thereby it is possible to reduce significantly the delay in processing. But if there is an error, the payment for the Bill of Entries have to be refiled and the amount refunded. It’s time consuming, so agents are reluctant to make advance payment,” says Shashank Priya, Professor, WTO Studies, Indian Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT).
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