As I am being relieved of my charge as Zonal Jt.D.G.F.T., Mumbai today I would like to take this opportunity to share certain thoughts with the fraternity consisting of exporters, government officials, export promotion councils and experts and others who are involved in the promotion of exports from the western region of India.

During the last five years I have benefited immensely from the ideas, suggestions and views garnered from a large number of individuals and bodies connected with the business of exports. I have used many of these to bring about improvements in the manner of functioning of the Mumbai office of the D.G.F.T. and set an example for the other offices in the western zone with the help of my official colleagues and members of the staff. I am happy that we have been able to achieve 100% in take of applications through the internet and the same day issue of licences despite teething problems due to the co-operation of the exporting community. We have also been able to institutionalise the work of Facilitation Committees and the Help-Desk of this office, both of which have received a lot of appreciation from the trade. The Web-site of this office, i.e. www.dgftmumbai.nic.in is gaining in popularity everyday as we continue to provide new and innovative features. Unfortunately occasional malfunctioning of DGFT server in New Delhi creates difficulties for this office as well as exporters but this will hopefully become a thing of past very soon as the systems get upgraded.

The trade will be happy to know that the DGFT has planned a number of things for the benefit of exporters during the next few months which will be unfolded very soon. One of the significant measures on the anvil is paperless transaction enabled by digital signatures and EDI linkages with Customs and Banks. With these measures a very large number of difficulties faced by exporters in terms of transaction time and costs, verification hassles, etc. will be automatically taken care of. This will also reduce the burden of routine work on the regional offices of DGFT to some extent, enabling us to devote our human resources as well as knowledge and skill resources towards facilitation and export promotion in the true sense of these terms.

We have decided to make a beginning in this direction in the Mumbai office by taking up a project of a “Knowledge Centre” which will be responsible not only for providing information and training to exporters as well as government officials dealing with exporters but will also assists exporters in their business development through consultation processes. The development of this Knowledge Centre will be based on the involvement of a larger community consisting of exporters, export promotion bodies, educational institutions and government bodies. You will learn more about this project and how you can contribute to it through our web-site from time to time.

I would like to thank all those individuals and institutions who have directly or indirectly contributed their views and ideas for improving the functioning of this office and making the operation of the schemes under the EXIM Policy more user-friendly. I would like to appeal all of them to continue to extend their co-operation and contribute their suggestions to this organisation in future also.

Sd/-
(SUBRAT RATHO)
ZONAL JT.D.G.F.T. & ADDL. EXPORT COMMISSIONER