Information technology division visakhapatnam port trust visakhapatnam

Functional/Process flow of PCS messages and integration with Port’s application (POMS/ROMS)

Centralized Port Community System (PCS) is an initiative by Indian Ports Association (IPA) intended to provide a single window system for the Port communities in India to securely exchange the documents and information electronically with their stakeholders involved in the maritime transport and logistics chain including the trading partners and government agencies. It also expected to provide global visibility and access to the central database to all its stakeholders through Internet based interfaces.

The stakeholders involved in the Port business and logistic chain and functionalities are as under:

1. 
   Port Authority
   
2. 
   Shipping Line/Agents
   
3. 
   Stevedoring Agent
   
4. 
   Terminal Operator
   
5. 
   Importer/Exporter/Customs House Agents
   
6. 
   Container Freight stations Operator
   
7. 
   Rail Transport Operator
   
8. 
   Surveyor
   
9. 
   Transporter
   
10. 
    Banks
    
11. 
    Customs
    
12. 
    Port Heal Officer
    
13. 
    Mercantile Marine Department
    
14. 
    Immigration
    

Port Authority is a state establishment in charge of development and promotion of port equipment and ensuring the compliance of regulations. Port takes care of Allotment of berth, piloting vessels in and out of the port and also provides other vessel related and cargo related services.

Shipping Line operates a fleet of ships and other carriers and the Shipping Agent provides the services on behalf of Shipping Lines. Shipping Agent coordinates the arrangements for ship arrival, berthing, discharge/loading and departure of the vessel with port, customs and other regulatory bodies.

The terminal operator manages the terminal operations on behalf of Port and receives, stores, loads/discharges and delivers the containers/cargo within the terminal. They collect the terminal handling charges and storage charges while port collect the vessel related charges.

Importers / exporters are the owners of the goods being imported/ exported. And they are mainly responsible for completion of customs and Port formalities either themselves or through a Customs House Agent (CHA). CHA helps the importer/Exporter in getting the customs clearance for his consignments. CHA declares the goods with Customs, and gets goods examined by Customs, pays the duty in the Customs designated bank and takes the physical possession of the cargo from the Custodian after paying all Port dues/charges.

Stevedores arrange for the labor gangs to handle containers, trailers, pallets, boxes, etc., maintain the tally sheets, and report the container/cargo loading and discharging details to the port and shipping agent. They also ensure the transport of handling units though the port area.

The CFS is the custodian of containers and the cargo till the cargo is released to the importers after de-stuffing in case of imports and for exports till the cargo is shifted to port after stuffing. In the case of exports, the cargo is brought to the CFS for examination by Customs, stuffed in the containers and shifted to the port for loading on to the vessel.

The Rail Transport Operator acts both as a custodian of cargo and also as an agency for transporting the containers to/from the port from/to the Inland Container Depots (ICDs). They move the containers by rail / road (in case of shortage of rakes to move container)s directly from the port to ICDs and back. CONCOR is used as synonym for Rail Transport Operator in Port Community as there are not many rail transporters on board.

The Surveyor is hired by port/ Importer/Exporter as well as of the shipping agent to survey the vessel, container and cargo. The survey reports are used for ascertaining the damages if any. The surveyors also monitor the stevedoring activities and co-ordinate stuffing/de-stuffing, movement of containers/cargo and loading/discharging.

The transporter shifts the containers or cargo from the port area to the designated CFS in case of imports. The transporters are also involved in shifting the empty containers from CFS to empty container storage yard. In case of export, Transporter moves the containers to the Port yard. The transporter engaged by the Port moves the containers from yard to the vessel in the case of exports and vice versa in the case of imports.

Bank facilitates the payment of service charges by the stakeholders to the port and other statutory charges like excise/stamp duties and taxes to Customs and other government agencies.

Customs is the government department in charge of collecting duty and taxes and of the border control. Customs also enforces the provisions of the Customs Act governing imports and exports of cargo, arrival and departure of vessels and prevention of smuggling including interdiction of narcotics drug trafficking. Customs grants entry inward / entry outwards permission for the vessel and clear goods for both import and export.

The agency that is responsible for the inspection of hygiene in the ship and amongst the crew, so as to control the spread of infectious diseases from incoming vessels and aircraft, inspecting food/ agricultural products entering the Port, for wholesomeness, fitness and compliance with Indian legislation. Some of the cargo samples like edible oil is inspected by PHO and permitted for domestic use based on lab certification. On arrival, the PHO also issues de-ratting exemption certificate to the vessel.

The agency that is responsible for applying the immigration laws of the country and Providing the needed documents for foreign crew and passengers to disembark and embark.

They represent the container Lines and provide the steamer agent with details of the containers belonging to them in the vessel. They also give the delivery order to the Clearing Agent/Importer for clearing the container. Similarly, the Liner gives the authorization for loading containers to a vessel to the clearing agent. They recover terminal handling charges and container detention charges as also issue Bill of lading and agent’s delivery order to the consignees.

It is a centralized intelligent messaging system for the stakeholders to exchange structured messages in multiple protocols.

It has centralized data repository to provide effective track and trace facility to all stakeholders.

PCS message Hub handles electronic document exchange between stakeholders, the message routing and forwarding. It enables pre-defined trading partners to request for the submission and retrieval of document-based messages. MHub provides a variety of interfaces/gateways for the stakeholders to exchange messages with their business partner. The stakeholder would choose the interfaces based on their in-house system interfacing requirements, IT infrastructure and the messaging protocols preferred and the transaction volume. MHub supports the standard messaging protocols like HTTP, SMTP and FTP and has inbuilt gateways to handle most of the international messaging standards.

• Submit Message Web Service

• List Messages Web Service

• Delete Message Web Service

The PCS messages would have the following segments or parts:

· Message Header

· Message Details

· Message Trailer
Message Header:

Message Header includes the information about the EDI message that is being exchanged. It includes the Type of the Business Document exchanged. The message reference numbers, the sender and recipient IDs along with the Ids of the parties need to be notified. The structure of the header is same for all the PCS messages.

This portion of the message captures the data elements of the business document exchanged and the structure of this portion would change based on the business document.

Ex:

A - Amendment

S - Supplement

D - Deletion

P - Post Arrival

V - Prior arrival

C - Cancel

R - Rejected

N - New
Message Trailer

Message Trailer will have the date and time of the message is prepared and the message summary information if any.

1. All the groups in the text format starts with the group identifier mentioned in the respective message section.

2. The groups are identified by separate nodes in the XML format

3. Date and Time fields need to be entered in the following format:

Date - DDMMYYYY

Date and Time - DDMMYYYY:hh:mm

Time - hh:mm

Delimiters for Text files are given in the table below:

No delimiter after the last element of every record and new line Character is used as Record terminator.

PCS provided a Stakeholder support for 24 X 7 through the Software vendor M/s. CrImsonLogic Limited. For any queries and problems while exchange/broad caste of the messages/up-loading and downloading of messages they have provided a toll free no. 1800-425-5554 and e-mail id pcssupport@crImsonlogic.co.in for maintaining the smooth functionality of PCS.