Pariksha SaathiPiyush Goyal launches National Strategic Trade Command Centre at Vanijya Bhawan for data-driven trade monitoring
Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal launched the National Strategic Trade Command Centre (NSTCC) at Vanijya Bhawan, New Delhi, on 15 October 2026, in the presence of Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal and Director General of Foreign Trade Lav Agarwal. Developed by the Department of Commerce, the centre is an integrated analytics and visualisation platform that gives policymakers a consolidated view of India's trade performance, export promotion schemes, regulatory approvals and application processing. Its first-phase dashboards cover key Directorate General of Foreign Trade functions: Importer Exporter Code (IEC), Advance Authorisation, Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG), Certificates of Origin, SCOMET (dual-use export controls) and restricted imports and exports. It is built around three dimensions, integrated monitoring, performance assessment and evidence-based policy inputs, draws on DGFT systems and the Trade Connect ePlatform, and is meant to evolve into a whole-of-government decision-support tool for ministries, states and export promotion councils. Reviewing the SCOMET dashboard, the minister asked for the Inter-Ministerial Committee to meet weekly if needed to clear pending applications.
Drafted with AI assistance from the official PIB release linked above and checked against it by a second AI pass. Not line-edited by a human.
Learning context
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), under the Department of Commerce, administers the Foreign Trade Policy; the current policy, FTP 2023, took effect on 1 April 2023 with no fixed end date. Advance Authorisation allows duty-free import of inputs for export production, EPCG allows import of capital goods at zero duty against an export obligation, and SCOMET is India’s list of Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies whose export is controlled because of dual (civil and military) use.
Reference: DGFT’s official portal (Foreign Trade Policy and schemes)
Check yourself: is an Importer Exporter Code a licence to export a particular product?
No. The IEC is a registration number every importer or exporter needs; product-specific permissions, such as SCOMET authorisations, are separate.
Revision task: from this release, note what the NSTCC is, who developed it and the DGFT functions its first dashboards cover, and keep them apart from the standing facts about the Foreign Trade Policy above.
Test yourself
The National Strategic Trade Command Centre launched on 15 October 2026 was developed by which department, and where is it located?
Show the answer
Answer: Department of Commerce; Vanijya Bhawan, New Delhi
The NSTCC was developed by the Department of Commerce and launched by Piyush Goyal at Vanijya Bhawan, New Delhi; its first dashboards cover DGFT functions such as IEC, Advance Authorisation, EPCG and SCOMET.
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