The Directorate
General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Ministry of Commerce & Industry,
has become India’s first digital signature enabled agency, marking
a big step forward in the promotion of paperless trading in the
country’s foreign trade sector. The DGFT, yesterday, signed an
MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with M/s. SafeScrypt Limited,
who will provide the DGFT with necessary technical support and
consultancy services in this regard. Accordingly, the infrastructure
available in DGFT for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) would
now be PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) enabled and there would
be seamless transmission of authorised information.
The MOU was signed
by Shri L. Mansingh, Director General of Foreign Trade (e-mail:
mansingh@ub.delhi.nic.in)
and Shri K. Dasaratharaman, Managing Director, SafeScript Limited,
(dash@safescrypt.com)
in the presence of Senior Officers of the Directorate. From 1st
December, 2002 the Office of DGFT at New Delhi has become digital
signature enabled. All the notifications issued by the DGFT are
being signed with encrypted digital signature. As a result,
all Exim notifications, public notices, and in course of time,
licences issued by DGFT can be electronically transmitted with
digital signature, obviating the need of securing a authenticated
paper copy thereof. The exporting community who apply for import/export
licences, Importer Exporter Code (IEC) would now be able to interact
with DGFT on a secured electronic platform which will facilitate
paperless verification, processing and communication.
The office of
DGFT is taking steps to enable Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT)
facility so that the exporters can transmit their applications
along with the application fee, as and where necessary without
physically visiting either a bank or the office of DGFT. Negotiations
are underway with other public sector banks like State Bank of
India, Central Bank of India and other private sector banks like
ICICI and HDFC etc. in this regard. It is expected that shortly
with the EFT facility being made functional, the simultaneous
activation of EFT and digital signature would enable DGFT to take
a gigantic leap in e-governance initiative with complete paperless
transaction.
At the moment
DGFT is the first Government department to have become digital
signature enabled. The Controller of Certifying Authority
(CCA) has permitted SafeScrypt Limited, a 100% subsidiary of Satyam
Infoway and an affiliate of Verisign-USA, as the first licensed
Certifying Authority (CA) under the IT Act 2000. Subsequently,
M/s. TCS Limited and Institute for Development and Research in
Banking Technology (IDRBT) Hyderabad have also become Certifying
Authorities (CAs). National Informatics System (NIC) and Central
Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC) are also in the process of
obtaining licence to become Certifying Authority (CA) to grant
digital signature facility.
