Government sources have told CNBC-TV18 that India is upgrading Indian Customs Electronic Gateway (ICEGATE)’s digital infrastructure to make counting of India’s imports faster and more efficient.
ICEGATE is the national portal of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC). All the trade data comes to the server of ICEGATE, which provides e-filing services to trade, cargo carriers, and other trading partners electronically.
Sources indicated that the eventual reconciliation of trade data is a time-consuming process, but the government can’t stop or delay its monthly declaration of data. Describing the revision of trade data as a normal practice, sources added that the current change is being termed as a correction since precious metals are involved.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has said that the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS) engages in regular revision and correction of trade data, based on data that’s received late, amendments in the respective months, and qualitative corrections wherever required.
The principal commodity-level data, which has been uploaded recently at the DGCIS Data Dissemination Portal, incorporates the first phase of reconciliations made to date. Revision has been done for trade figures from April 2024 to November 2024, which are made public in compliance with the government’s regular publication cycle maintained as per international standard data dissemination norms.
The revised data can be accessed through the Data Dissemination Portal of DGCIS. A committee has been formed with stakeholders from DGCIS, DG Systems (CBIC), and SEZs for the creation of a robust mechanism for publishing consistent data.
The government has pointed out that revision and corrections are an inherent part of any statistical procedure internationally. The quick estimate values are initial estimates and are often systematically amended to reflect more accurate information. It added that official statistics released worldwide are subject to subsequent corrections and revisions as per available updated and additional information.
(Edited by : Anand Singha)
