The electronic scanners, which are being procured from China, will be installed at East and West Wharves of the Karachi Port and Port Qasim.
The job has been assigned to the NLC by the Ministry of Finance (MoF).
The Ministry of Communications, in a fax, has requested the port authorities to co-operate with the NLC for the selection of suitable sites for installation of the scanners at the two ports.
The site will be selected by a committee, comprising the Director, Dry Ports, NLC, an Additional Collector of the Customs and Estate Officer of the concerned port.
The site required for the scanners would be 80 X 80 metres with substantial area for lining of the transport to be scanned.
The experts have pointed out that the scanning system would only be meaningful if there is only one exit and one entry point at the area selected for scanning of cargo at a particular port.
In case of more exits, foolproof scanning would be a difficult preposition, the experts added.
The port authorities were informed that a NLC team would shortly visit the KPT and Port Qasim on a date to be intimated by them.
Originally, an offer was made to the port authorities to install electronic scanners from their own resources, which they refused, for paucity of funds. Finally, the Ministry of Finance selected the NLC to install and operate the electronic scanners.
It may be pointed out that the ISPS code is part of the new world security order, initiated after September 11 attacks in the US.
The US Customs has ruled that no container should be loaded on a ship destined for the US unless its contents had been duly screened. The code would come into effect from July 1.
Under the security arrangements, the US customs officials were posted on all major ports to examine the containers destined for the US. All export containers, destined for the US, were unloaded from the feeder ships at Salalah Port and screened thoroughly before being loaded onto the ships sailing for the US. A team of the US customs officials visited Pakistan last week and discussed with the local customs officials' arrangements for the security of cargo destined for the US.
Their offer of deployment of the US customs staff at Pakistan ports was not accepted and instead the US officials were asked to provide training and equipment to the Pakistani customs to deal with the security problems likely to be confronted in the shipping sector.