India’s first inland waterways shipment to start with PepsiCo

Source: Business Standard, Oct 28, 2018

Kolkata: The country’s first container movement on inland waterways vessel post-independence scheduled on Tuesday, 30^th October, from Kolkata would start with a consignment of the PepsiCo.

Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) officials said the food and Beverage giant would move 16 containers from Kolkata to Varanasi on NW-1.

PepsiCo (India) will move 16 containers equivalent to 16 truckloads – filled with food and snacks in the vessel MV RN Tagore which will reach Varanasi in 9-10 days, the officials said.

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Global logistics meet in Delhi on Sept 26

Source: The Hindu Business Line, Sept 17, 2018

Chennai: On September 26, nearly 1,000 delegates from 120 countries will congregate in Delhi to participate in the FIATA World Congress, to be hosted for the first time in India, to discuss various aspects related to logistics.

Founded in 1926, Fédération Internationale des Associations de Transitaires et Assimilés (FIATA) or International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations is a non-governmental organisation, and represents over 40,000 forwarding and logistics firms, employing around 10 million people in 150 countries.

National Logistics Portal to help boost trade competitiveness

New Delhi: The first phase of the National Logistics Portal (NLP) — a digital platform to bring all stakeholders in the logistics sector on board to cut down transaction cost and time for businesses — is likely to be implemented by March, a government official said.

“The Department of Commerce, which is designing the portal, has already received an approval of the ‘proof of concept’ from a Committee of Secretaries and is now working on the detailed project report,” a government official associated with the project told BusinessLine.

Govt plans to introduce direct delivery scheme at inland container depots

Source: The Hindu Business Line, Jun 24, 2018

Mumbai: Buoyed by the success of the direct port delivery (DPD) scheme introduced at seaports, the Government proposes to implement a similar concept at inland container depots (ICDs) or dry ports to cut time and costs for cargo imported in containers.

Under DPD, import containers are delivered directly to pre-approved clients at the port instead of waiting at a container freight station (CFS) located outside for clearance, which reduces cargo dwell time and costs for shippers. DPD was first implemented in the Jawaharlal Nehru Port, India’s biggest container gateway, and later extended to all the gateway ports, including Chennai Port and privately-run Mundra port.

E-way bill: Transporters can now use common enrolment number across multiple States

Source: The Hindu Business Line, Jun 20, 2018

New Delhi: To help the logistics industry comply with e-way bill requirements with ease, the Finance Ministry has announced new rules for transporters running businesses in multiple States.

The Central Goods and Services Tax (Sixth Amendment) Rules, 2018, which came into effect on June 19, prescribes: “A transporter who is registered in more than one State or Union Territory having the same Permanent Account Number, may apply for a unique common enrolment number by submitting the details in FORM GST ENR-02 using any one of his Goods and Services Tax Identification Numbers, and upon validation of the details furnished, a unique common enrolment number shall be generated and communicated to the said transporter.”

Intra-state e-way bill rolled out in five states from Sunday

Source: Business Standard, Apr 16, 2018

E-way bill requirement for intra-state movement of goods has been rolled out in five states from Sunday.

The bill for inter-state movement of goods valued over Rs 50,000 was rolled out on April 1. The Goods and Services Council had decided on a staggered roll out of intra-state e-way bill starting with five states — Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala.

From midnight till 5 pm on Sunday, about 0.24 million e-way bill (both inter state and intra-state) was generated on the portal, an official said.

The official said there was not much increase in the generation of bill on Sunday on account of intra-state roll out.

On the day of inter-state roll out of e-way bill on April 1, about 0.28 million such bills were generated in 24 hours.

The official said one reason for not much increase in the number could be because Gujarat has mandated e-way bill for intra-state movement for only 19 items. These items include edible oil, oil cakes, ceramic tiles, iron and steel, processed tobacco, gutkha, cigarette, cement, timber products, tea, marble and granite.

Since the roll out of e-way bill for inter-state movement of goods from April 1, more than 9.1 million bills have been generated till Saturday. Karnataka is the only state which had rolled out e-way bill system for intra-state movement of goods from April 1.

Touted as an anti-evasion measure and would help boost tax collections by clamping down on trade that currently happens on cash basis, the e-way bill provision of the goods and services tax (GST) was first introduced on February 1.

However, its implementation was put on hold after the system developed glitches in generating permits. With several states also starting to generate intra-state e-way bills on the portal, the system developed a snag.Since then, the platform has been made more robust so that it can handle load of as many as 75 lakh inter-state e-way bills daily without any glitch.

 

Intra-state e-way bill for movement of goods to roll out in 5 states from April 15

Source: Financial Express, Apr 10, 2018

New Delhi: E-way bill for movement of goods within the state will be rolled out from April 15, starting with 5 states including Gujarat, UP and Kerala. From April 1, the government had launched the electronic-way or e-way bill system for moving goods worth over Rs 50,000 from one state to another. The same for intra, or within the state movement, will be rolled out from April 15, finance ministry said in a statement. The five states which would form part of the first phase are Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh. “With the roll-out of e-way bill system in these states, it is expected that trade and industry will be further facilitated insofar as the transport of goods is concerned, thereby eventually paving the way for a nation-wide single e-way bill system,” the ministry said.