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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday unveiled the National Logistics Policy and set a goal to trim the country’s logistics costs from as much as 13-14 per cent of its GDP to a single digit over the next few years.
The policy aims to ensure seamless movement of goods and services across the country and cut elevated logistics costs, often considered the biggest structural bottleneck for both external and internal trade in India.
Touted as the first holistic framework for the country’s $150-billion logistics sector, the policy is expected to help boost manufacturing, create infrastructure and spur employment.
“If we want to be globally competitive, it (achieving the target) is a low-hanging fruit,” the Prime Minister said, casting the policy as one of the crucial steps in India’s journey towards being a manufacturing powerhouse and a developed nation.
Modi, however, was emphatic in stating the need for coordinated follow-up action by both public and private sectors to ensure that the policy serves the intended purpose.
“A policy isn’t an end in itself. It’s a beginning. Policy plus performance is equal to progress. Once the policy is in place, the responsibility of the government and industry goes up,” Modi said. “I hope goods will move with the speed of a cheetah (due to the efficient implementation of the logistics policy).”
The new logistics policy caps eight years of the government’s efforts to create a conducive ecosystem in the logistics sector, he said, adding that it will complement the PM Gati Shakti national masterplan initiative.
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Gati Shakti is essentially a GIS-based platform with close to 1,500 layers, capturing all utilities and network linkages in various economic clusters.
Under this, different departments join hands for a coordinated development of projects.
The new logistics policy has four critical features: Integration of Digital System (IDS); Unified Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP); Ease of Logistics (ELOG); and System Improvement Group (SIG). Under the IDS, 30 different systems of seven departments are integrated; these include data of the road transport, railways, customs, aviation and commerce departments. FE
