KOCHI:
Indian Ports Association (IPA) in collaboration with Portall, Logistics Software Company organized a road show on Port Community System (PCS 1x) for the stake holders of Cochin Port Trust.
PCS is an ease of doing business initiative of Government of India and PCS 1x is the upgraded cloud version of PCS. The Road show was conducted with the objective of sensitizing & creating awareness amongst the maritime community and taking the Stakeholders on-board. PCS 1x was rolled out in December 2018 simultaneously at 12 Major Ports of India. Today, over 1400 users exchange the messages including customs, payments, vessel, cargo for their business transactions with the stake holders.
Adoption of PCS 1x would result in marked improvement for the ease of doing initiatives. It will help improved visibility, reduction in time & cost along with documentation work. The digital solution also aids in improving the payment facility and e-delivery in maritime trade.
While inaugurating the road show Dr M.Beena, Chairperson, Cochin Port Trust informed that PCS 1x is a platform that facilitates the Port users to transact business with their stake holders irrespective of the size or technical capability of the user. Also stated that wide spread use of similar platforms like PCS 1x will help the India’s economic growth and sought the help of all stake holders. The road show helps the stake holders to speed up on-boarding by the rest of the maritime ecosystem since the platform is designed to handle 27 stakeholder categories and is able to meet any changes requested by stakeholders. All Major Trade associations are working along with IPA and Portall for seamless adoption and accommodating additional requests from the stakeholders.
IPA presented the updates on usage and upcoming technical aspects for users. Representatives from Portall presented to the trade community the benefits and features of PCS 1x and indicated additional functionalities in the pipeline.
Around 100 participants including Shipping agents, Custom House Agents, Terminal & Container Freight Station Operators and officials from Cochin Port Trust attended the road show. An interactive discussion on the way forward and live on-boarding of new users onto PCS 1x was also held.
