JNPT reduces number of documents to ease business

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) chairperson Anil Diggikar has said they have reduced the number of documents required by the port to bring down the waiting time for tractor trailers (TT).

"First thing we did was to reduce the number of documents required by the port. Currently, we require only one document from the trade and that too is made online. This obviously helped in reducing the waiting time for tractor trailers (TT)," said an official statement quoting Diggikar.

Stating that the ease of doing business at JNPT is at par with its global counterparts now, Diggikar said: "The major initiatives taken by JNPT are switching over to e-platform for all its commercial procedures and improving its road infrastructure to streamline the traffic."

"The Port has also started inter-terminal movement of tracter trailers (TTs) and also incentivizes the movement of containers from and to Container Freight Station (CFS) by rail. These two initiatives have taken a lot of pressure off the road," said Diggikar in the statement.

Among other major steps taken by JNPT, includes commencement of direct port delivery (DPD) from the terminal for ACP clients.

"A lot of transaction time and money is saved by avoiding the earlier format of taking containers to the CFS and getting clearance from there. The port has allotted additional area to the private terminals to facilitate more DPD volumes," said the statement.

According to the statement, there was significant increase in the number of containers cleared after the facility has come in practice.

"In pursuance of port initiatives, the shipping lines have switched over to e-delivery orders in place of manual orders which has now made container deliveries quick and hassle-free," said the statement adding that JN Port has also made significant improvements to its road infrastructure, especially on the last mile connectivity.

"JN Port has widened and concretised the critical junctions on the roads to the terminal. The work was completed in June 2016. For the long term, JN Port, through SPV formed by JNPT, National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), with NHAI being the implementing agency, has initiated 6/8 lanes road widening project of linkages to national and state highways," said the statement.

This project will be in four packages with a completion period of two years. In addition to the existing parking areas at JN Port, the Port is developing Centralised Parking Plaza.

JN Port has deployed dedicated team of Officers for coordinating the flow of traffic round the clock with police authorities. JN Port has provided 25 (twenty five) security guards to assist Police for controlling the container traffic at nodal points.

"As a result of these initiatives, the average import dwell time has reduced to 1.5 days, which compares well with international benchmark of 1.5-2 days. Similarly, average export dwell time is reduced to 65 hours from the earlier 88 hours," said the statement quoting Neeraj Bansal, Deputy Chairman at JNPT.

He also added that Port is constantly striving with plans and initiatives for meeting the increased traffic and business as first phase of its mega fourth container terminal of 4.8 Million TEUs capacity will be ready in Dec 2017.

--IANS

rup/rn