Union Minister of State for Shipping (Independent Charge), Mansukh Mandaviya inaugurated the direct port entry (DPE) facility of VO Chidambaranar Port Trust in Thoothukudi (Tuticorin) by unveiling the e-plaque on Tuesday.
Addressing the inauguration ceremony through video conference, Mandaviya said that this was a noteworthy step towards reducing logistics cost and increasing the velocity of the cargo. The DPE will help in increasing ease of doing business for the exporters, as the facility would introduce efficiency and reduce dwell time, lower tariff cost and improve the competitiveness of the shipper engaged in international trade.
The state-of-the-art DPE facility would enable direct movement of containers from factories, without intermediate handling at any container freight station (CFS), thus facilitating the shippers to gate-in their factory stuffed exports directly to the container terminal on a 24×7 basis. The facility is created in an area of 18,357 sq m inside the truck parking terminal, which was developed under the Sagarmala Programme for issuing customs clearance of export cargo, i.e., factory stuffed or e-sealed containers. It can handle 18,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) per month.
The DPE facility will generate the let export order (LEO) under a single roof without any hassle. A dedicated team of CWC and customs officials, in association with the VOC Port, will serve Tier-II, Tier-III Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) certified export & import (EXIM) clients.
Earlier, the factory stuffed (self-sealed) containers were taken to one of the container freight stations (CFSs) or inland container depot (ICD) operating in Thoothukudi. The CFSs operates from 10 am to 8 pm on working days only. This often resulted in considerable delays in admitting the self-sealed export containers into the container terminals. Therefore, the port developed the DPE facility to enable the export clearance of factory stuffed e-sealed containers, resulting in faster and cost-effective export admittance.
The port entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with CWC to operate the facility for 30 years and the customs department has also approved operating the DPE facility in the port.
Dr. Sanjeev Ranjan, Secretary, Ministry of Shipping, in his address, said that the IT-enabled infrastructure at the ports would make Indian ports world-class to align with the ‘Maritime Vision 2030’ blueprint of the Ministry of Shipping.
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