BCHAA for empowerment
Ashish Pednekar, President, BCHAA and Dushyant Mulani, Honorary Secretary, BCHAA, on the sidelines of CBEC spoke to CARGOTALK on educating members through knowledge sessions.
How important is educating the trade?
Ashish Pednekar: We want our members to get industry updates promptly to help them in their dayto-day business. The session was well-attended by 250-odd members and a lot of questions were posed to the CBEC Commissioner and the Chairman of New India Assurance. How did this regulatory change come about?
Dushyant Mulani: A lot of representation had gone from the association to address the matter directly with the CBEC Commissioner. We received this circular within six months of the discussion. These are all teething troubles because any change is going to be viewed differently by grassroot officers and the trade. What are the changes announced in the circular?
Dushyant Mulani: The CBEC has empowered us with these circulars. Simplification has happened for bonding of cargo. Physical escorting of cargo, taking the different transit insurance policies have been done away with. For Special Valuation Branch (SVB) also, there are a lot of improvements made where there’s no need for renewal anymore.
Earlier, it had to be done every three years. The duty deposit which had to be paid has been also knocked off. And most importantly, timelines have been given. The SVB process is for related party, mainly multi-nationals. Will there be more such similar sessions?
Ashish Pednekar: This is a continuous process – we will soon address a couple of other important
In the 4th Annual General Meeting of Air Cargo Forum India (ACFI), the association members elected ACFI’s governing board members for 2016-18. ACFI is committed to develop the air cargo industry by engaging itself proactively with government and other regulatory agencies for simplifying and streamlining procedures and enhancing the level of ease of doing business in India. Tushar K Jani, Chairman, Cargo Service issues like law and order and ease of doing business. We are also willing at conducting a joint event with the ports and the customs department. Custom broking will become an important link in the entire supply chain and we would like to educate our members so that they have an edge. We have about 2,000 members right now. What other topics will you be touching on?
We want to provide legal assistance to members facing issues regarding compliances. Not only that, we are available to help them upscale their business. We will take up major issues in the next Center is the President, Cyrus Katgara, Partner, Jeena & Company as Vice President, Yashpal Sharma, Director, Skyways Air Services as Hon. Secretary and Ramesh Mamidala, CEO, Celebi Delhi Cargo Terminal Management India as Hon. Treasurer. Following are the members of the board: • Neera Rawat, ED Cargo, Airports Authority of India (AAI) couple of months. The association is talking directly with the Industries Minister of Maharashtra, Subhash Desai, regarding infrastructure issues at JNPT. Another issue is regarding the law and order situation and we are talking to the Minister of Home of Maharashtra directly. We are also working out a process for debt recovery for our members.
This is a continuous process – we will soon address a couple of other important issues like law and order and ease of doing business We want to provide legal assistance to members who are facing issues regarding compliances. We are also available to help them upscale their business
We are also trying to do something for family members of our staff. Insurance has been extended to the staff as well as to their family members. We want to improve the ground realities for our staff, be it transportation, logistics, law and order, etc. • • • • Abhay Pathak, ED Cargo, Air India (AI) Vipin Kumar Mohla, Director Cargo Sales & Operation, InterGlobe Aviation R.S. Subramanian, Sr Vice President and Managing Director, DHL Express Arun Kumar, Managing Director, Ensynergy Supply Chain Solution