Although air traffic growth has surpassed industry expectations, air freight has remained neglected hindering smooth movement of cargo affecting timely and prompt delivery, it said observing that growth in air freight traffic has brought to fore necessity of developing air cargo villages.
The panel suggested development of international air cargo hubs also at international airports to act as centralised transit points. Undertaken on large scale, it could not only boost trade and economy but generate employment opportunities, the group said, adding for air cargo hubs it is critical to earmark customs free zones where payment of duties and taxes are suspended upon arrival of goods.
Function like FTZs/SEZs
Speaking to Deccan Herald, Air Cargo Agents Association of India Bangalore Region Chairman Prem Kumar, hailing the idea, said cargo villages play vital role providing value-added service to the industry and customers. It will help freight forwarders take shipments directly to their bonded warehouses on arrival and pay required duty & taxes by importers and take delivery. “This is a dream for Indian importers as of now.”
The cargo village, he explained, enables entire cargo related activities consolidated at single location and functioning like FTZs/SEZs as in countries like Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong and facilitates activities like customs, carriers and custodians under single roof jointly meeting all legal requirements making cargo ready for carriage from this location to an airport.
According to Kumar, cargo village at BIAL is just for name sake and came up after association’s persistent demand for one such. It is temporary one with limited infrastructure facilities. There is no real cargo village anywhere in India.
The Centre should create single window policy for creating, monitoring and supervisory control of cargo village, he said. This will eliminate the multiplicity of controls by various ministries like finance, aviation and commerce.
The Working Group, under chairmanship of Anwarul Hoda, Member, Planning Commission, said air cargo villages, in addition to cargo handling and transfers meeting basic logistical needs of shippers and carriers, can provide other integrated facilities and services, and could come up on land demarcated within international airport and where land is not available within, off-airport village facilities could be developed. It is for the airport operator to decide whether the investment necessary for upgrading the infrastructure is justified for making the airport an international air cargo hub.