V.O. Chidambaranar Port organized a Road Show to sensitize the new version of Port Community System (PCS 1x) in association with Indian Ports Association (IPA) at the Administrative Office of the Port.
The Port Community System road show commenced with the inaugural address from Mrs. S. Shanthi, Financial Advisor and Chief Accounts Officer. The officials from M/s. Portall Infosystems Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai, who designed and developed and maintain PCS 1x under the auspices of the Indian Ports Association, New Delhi, the implementing agency of PCS 1x, made detailed presentations on the features and benefits of the new version of the cloud based Port Community System that seamlessly integrates 27 stakeholders from the maritime trade on a single platform.
The Port community were also sensitized on features like notification engine, workflow, mobile application, track and trace, security, payment aggregation and dashboards etc. The stakeholders were also explained on the ability of ‘PCS1x’ to latch on to third party software and its improved communication with the customs. Various trade Associations represented their views and suggestions on PCS1x and there was a lively interaction session with all attendees. The session concluded with live onboarding of new users onto PCS 1x.
Shri T.K. Ramachandran, IAS, Chairman, V.O. Chidambaranar Port Trust in his message conveyed that the new version of PCS will have a cascading effect in reducing dwell time and overall cost of logistics cost. He also stated that the platform has the potential to revolutionize maritime trade in India and bring it at par with global best practices and pave the way to improve the Ease of Doing Business world ranking and Logistics Performance Index (LPI) ranks.
The road show received good response from Shipping Agents, Custom House Agents, Stevedores, Terminal Operators, Container Freight Stations, Mercantile Marine Department, Port Health Organization and other officials of V.O.Chidambaranar Port Trust. Port Community System, also known as PCS, is an electronic platform enabling intelligent, automated and secure exchange of information between public and private stakeholders connecting the entire logistics chain. PCS 1X was rolled out in December 2018- simultaneously at 12 Major Ports of India. Today over 14,000 users exchange the transactions daily including customs, payments, vessel, cargo and delivery related messages.
The common benefits of the port Community System includes; reduction in paper work, reduction in dwell time, acceleration of the entire logistics operational processes, availability of real time information over the supply chain and reduction of delays in cargo movement.
