ACCS to improve air cargo competence
The report outlines how it believes the country’s airfreight industry should be improved and necessary steps are being taken by the government to take the air cargo industry to the next level.
Realising the importance of electronic platform to digitise key stakeholder interactions and to facilitate ease of doing business, the Indian government will develop an Air Cargo Community System (ACCS) through a public private partnership to try and reduce the cost and improve the efficiency of processing air-freight shipments. A report by a Ministry of Civil Aviation committee said that it backed having a single window system for the air cargo community to interface with the Indian Customs systems to facilitate the ‘seamless movement of goods and information’.
Dr. Renu Singh Parmar, Senior Advisor, Ministry of Civil Aviation, said, “Each air cargo shipment on average carries around 30 types of documents and well over 100 copies, thus resulting in significant documentation overheads, increased dwell times and supply chain opaqueness. This electronic platform can allow the reusability of data thereby eliminating duplicate data entry, reducing unnecessary paperwork by giving authorised access to data to the relevant supply chain stakeholder and bringing in supply chain visibility thereby reducing inventory and other transaction costs related to air cargo movement.”
“MoCA understands this need for having a single window for air cargo community which will interface with Indian Customs single window and facilitate seamless movement of goods and information. To study this need further and identify the way forward, MoCA constituted an ACS committee drawing representation from all stakeholder groups. The committee has compiled this report on the basis of consultations with these groups across several meetings. This draft has been finalised after a series of revisions,” she informed.
“To facilitate the ease of doing business, it is recognised that an electronic platform be put in place to digitise key stakeholder interactions.The move links in with the country’s ‘Make in India’ campaign that aims to develop the manufacturing.” The report said that India is the fastest growing economy in the world but transactions costs are also some of the highest.
At the moment airports and cargo agents have developed their own cargo community systems for stakeholders with varying capabilities to facilitate information exchange between parties in the air cargo supply chain. However, the current systems lack efficiency, transparency and consistency.
“Further there is a lack of uniformity for message interface, a lack of data harmonisation, and a lack of end-to-end tracking.”
To facilitate the ease of doing business, it is recognised that an electronic platform be put in place to digitise key stakeholder interactions