ExportShift Pune 2026: What the Room Told Us
The rules of Indian exports are being rewritten. Most exporters have not read the draft yet.
In February 2026, DGFT released the draft Digital Trade Facilitation Bill. It proposes giving electronic trade documents the same legal standing as paper. It also lays the foundation for BharatTradeNet, the government’s unified digital platform for trade documents and finance, announced in Budget 2025-26.
When it becomes law, how an exporter works with banks, customs, carriers and buyers changes. The question Freightnaut kept hearing from small and medium exporters every week was the same one: what does this actually mean for us?
That question was the reason for ExportShift. On October 27, we brought exporters from across Pune into one room to hear a straight answer from someone who had spent decades on both sides of the policy table, and to hear from each other.
This is what happened that evening.
The Format We Chose
ExportShift was designed with one principle: value first, no pitch.
No product demo on stage. No sponsors. No sales talk. The room was invite-only, 30 seats for owners and export heads. The audience was the panel. Exporters who came spoke openly because nothing was being sold to them.
The evening opened with a two-minute readiness poll over QR code, moved to the keynote with questions open throughout, then to an open floor where the mic went table to table, and ended with dinner.
Companies that attended came from engineering, forging, chemicals, polymers, packaging and manufacturing, from Chakan, Bhosari, PCMC and Pune city. Several sent two or three people.
The Poll Nobody Expected
Before Sudhakar Kasture stepped up to speak, we asked everyone in the room six questions on their phone.
The result that changed the energy in the room: not one person had read the draft Digital Trade Facilitation Bill. Several had heard of it with no details. A few were hearing about it for the first time that evening.
And then the same group, asked whether they felt ready for when electronic documents become legally valid, said yes. Most felt ready or mostly ready.
Confidence was ahead of knowledge. That gap is the whole reason ExportShift exists.
What Sudhakar Kasture Told the Room
Sudhakar Kasture is Director at Helpline Impex and a mentor at Exim Institute. He has 45 years in exports and imports, has advised companies including Hindustan Unilever, Godrej Industries, Vedanta and Marico, and has served on the Ministry of Commerce task force on export transaction costs. He trains professionals at IIFT, NACEN and ICAI.
He gave the room the legal picture in plain language. Six things every exporter in that room needed to understand.
Paper loses its special status. Under the bill, an electronic trade document cannot be refused simply because it is digital. Exclusive control of the record replaces physical possession. This covers eBLs, bills of exchange, promissory notes and warehouse receipts.
Paper and digital can switch, once. When a document changes from one form to the other, the original version is extinguished. This stops double claims.
New trust layers get legal recognition. E-seals, timestamps, registered delivery, e-archiving and identity management are formally recognised under the bill.
Global alignment is built in. The bill follows the WCO Data Model, the Revised Kyoto Convention, the WCO Single Window and the UN model law on electronic transferable records, known as MLETR. Indian trade will align with how the rest of the world already operates.
What changes for exporters in practice. Electronic documents carry the same legal weight as paper. Banks can finance against them. Courier costs and port delays from late paper fall away.
BharatTradeNet shifts how trade actually moves. Trade moves from uploaded scans to structured data, tied to verified company identity and filed through government-approved Reliable Service Providers.
His parting thought for the room: “You better learn first, then you can teach us better.”
When the Mic Went to the Room
After the keynote, we handed the mic to the floor. The rule was simple: exporters speak, not us.
The room was quiet at first. Then one person started. Then the mic went table to table.
Owners talked about where their time actually goes. Preparing invoices, packing lists and shipping documents came up again and again as the biggest drain. Claiming incentives like RoDTEP and drawback came second. Most were still running their documentation on paper, through a CHA, in Excel, or over WhatsApp. Not one company in the room used dedicated export software.
Six of every ten leave most of their paperwork to a CHA or CA. That tells you where the relationship and the data actually live. It also tells you something important about how any change in how documents work reaches the exporter. It comes through the CHA first.
The question that produced the sharpest response: would you trust an electronic bill of lading? What would you ask DGFT for? Mr Kasture turned every story from the floor into a lesson for the whole room. The most useful conversations happened when owners pushed back and he pushed back harder.
What We Learned
Five things the room made clear.
Nobody uses export software yet. The category is wide open in Pune’s small and medium exporter segment. Paper, CHA, and WhatsApp are the current infrastructure.
Document preparation is the biggest time sink. Invoices, packing lists and shipping documents are where time goes. That is exactly the pain Freightnaut was built to solve.
Confidence is ahead of knowledge. Most exporters feel ready for digital trade. None had read the bill. Education has to come before selling.
They want information, not software. Most of the room asked for clear information about what is changing. Only a small number asked for software directly. Content and events earn trust first. The product follows.
The CHA is the gatekeeper. If you want to reach exporters, the CHA and CA hold the relationship and the data. That is who Freightnaut needs to work with.