Exporters in Delhi are incurring losses over $ 1 million (Rs 5 crore) every day after the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system with the Customs department of the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport suffered a major breakdown last week when a cable snapped near the Metro construction site.

Making a beeline at the international cargo terminal to get their cargo cleared by the manual system, exporters and agents deemed it more of a loss of reputation and clientele.

With no cargo movement out of the IGI Airport and cargo aircraft flying empty, the Customs department and the Air Cargo Agents’ Association of India (ACAAI) called an emergency meeting on Friday.

“At Delhi, approximately 2,000 consignments are sent every day, which means we have 2,000 shipping bills every day. More importantly, it is a loss of goodwill. The import side is also facing major delays,” said M G Sachdeva, Advisor, Federation of Freight Forwarders Association of India.

The Customs department has started working with the obsolete manual system of screening documents in the interim. “It is a time consuming process,” Sachdeva said. “There was a problem, but it has been rectified now,” MC Thakur, Chief Commissioner of Customs, IGI Airport, said.

A senior Customs official said the system has been down for the past week but manual data processing was started on Thursday.

“Under the normal procedure, the exporter first goes to the ice gate, after which his file is sent to the local server and entered there, when the exporter files his documents. Since the server is down now, not a single file is moving,” an exporter said.

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