So far, four firms—Siemens Communication, Godrej, Hindustan Lever, Chitale and a company from Pune—have decided to join hands with the BMC to kickstart the payment gateway through Internet. Several others like Tata Power, Reliance Energy, Reliance Communications, Bharti Airtel, Cadbury India Limited. Hindustan Lever Limited, Kores, Larsen and Toubro, United Spirit, VSNL, Hathway, Sony and Toyota are expected to follow suit.

“We had prepared a list of 69 prime importers who have an excellent track record and who together account for Rs 1,000 crore of the Octroi collected. Letters were sent out to all these firms asking them to be part of the new mode of payment,”’ said AP Mansukh, deputy assessor and collector for the BMC.

The Green Channel system allows importer to transfer the Octroi money from his account into the BMC’s account via four banks—State Bank of India (SBI), Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI), Axis Bank and Union Bank of India. The receipt has to be produced when the vehicle enters through the Octroi naka and it will be passed through a dedicated lane within minutes.

Presently, each consignment takes anywhere between an hour to three hours to make it through the naka. There are 400-odd Octroi agents who execute the long-winding procedures on behalf of the importers. In many cases these agents, in collusion with some unscrupulous Octroi officials, are known to undervalue the goods or produce fake invoices in order to pocket some of the money paid by importer.

The current system is heavily dependent on them and the traffic Eastern Express Highway was brought to a halt when the agents went on a strike in June last year.

With the Green channel, there will be no need to rely on agents. According to Mansukh, while the Green Channel will increase the Octroi collection for the civic body, for the importer it will mean speedy clearance of consignments with the benefit of self-assessing his goods. “Even now several importers are reluctant to join Green Channel system. But we are hoping that once we launch the system on January 26, its success will convince several others,” said Mansukh.