Customs want World Bank to consider cargo clearance in doing ranking

New Delhi: In a bid to seek higher Ease of Doing Business ranking, the Customs Department has communicated to the World Bank that the average time for clearance of consignments at ports have come down sharply to 100 hours, an official said.

Release time of consignments at Customs ports is one of the factors which is taken into account by the World Bank in its yearly Ease Of Doing Business ranking.

The department has also introduced an RFID-based system for real time tracking of containers to help logistics companies locate the position of the consignment at any given time.

The Customs Department has suggested to the World Bank that its representatives can do an independent assessment of the release time of the consignment at Customs port using the real time visibility application, the official added.

"The World Bank says that the release time is 267 hours, but in fact it is only 100 hours. So we want them to do a real time check using any container number on the ICEGATE portal," an official told PTI.

The new ranking is expected to be released in October. Currently, RFID-based tracking of cargoes is available in Nhava Sheva port in Mumbai, which handles maximum number of cargoes.

Mundra port in Gujarat too has started the tracking system and Chennai port is expected to launch it soon. Last year, India jumped 30 places to rank 100th in the World Bank's doing business report. The government wants the country break into top 50 in the coming years.