India is planning on investing in a single window air cargo community system as part of a public private partnership (PPP) model.

A report by the Ministry’s of Civil Aviation’s (MoCA) Committee on the National Air Cargo Community System (ACS) has outlined the development plans aimed at improving the efficiency of processing shipments and cutting costs.

As part of the PPP model the Indian Government is set to hold a 51 per cent stake with the remainder distributed among airport operators and other stakeholders like associations.

The ministry’s senior advisor and committee chairman, Renu Singh Parmar explains in the report: “India is one of the fastest growing large economies of the world and the Indian air cargo industry is poised for significant growth thanks to the landmark government initiatives like ‘Make in India’.

“In order to support sustainable growth, it is of paramount importance that right physical and digital infrastructure is put in place in the country which can facilitate the ease of doing business in India.”

She continues: “As per IATA, each air cargo shipment on average carries around 30 types of documents and well over 100 copies thus resulting into significant documentation overheads, increased dwell times and supply chain opaqueness.”

Parmar adds in India, to facilitate the ease of doing business, it is recognised an electronic platform needs to be put in place to digitize key stakeholder interactions: “This electronic platform can allow the reusability of data thereby eliminating duplicate data entry, reducing unnecessary paperwork by giving authorized access to data to the relevant supply chain stakeholder and bringing in supply chain visibility thereby reducing inventory and other transaction costs related to air cargo movement.”

Parmar notes MoCA understands the need for having a single window for air cargo community, which will interface with Indian Customs single window and facilitate seamless movement of goods and information.

She adds: “In order to study this need further and identify the way forward, MoCA constituted an Air Cargo Community System (ACS) committee drawing representation from all stakeholder groups.

“The committee has compiled this report on the basis of consultations with these groups across several meetings. This draft has been finalized after a series of revisions.”

She concludes she is confident the findings of the report will help to ensure the industry has the right digital infrastructure put in place in the form of an air cargo community system.