India’s logistics performance

• India ranked 44 in the logistics performance index-2018 prepared by the World Bank.
• India’s logistics costs add up to around 13 per cent of gross domestic product which is quite high compared to developed economies such as the US, South Korea, Singapore, and EU member-nations.

Government initiatives to improve logistics sector

• Greenfield expressways – ​​Greenfield Expressways are designed to avoid inhabited areas and go through new alignments to bring development to new areas and to reduce land acquisition costs and construction timelines. Eg: Delhi-Mumbai Expressway
• Dedicated freight corridors- It is a high speed and high capacity railway corridor that is exclusively meant for the transportation of freight, or in other words, goods and commodities.
• The goods and services tax and e-way bill system have transformed the nature of transport documentation
• GatiShakti platform is essentially a digital platform to bring 16 Ministries including Railways and Roadways together for integrated planning and coordinated implementation of infrastructure connectivity projects.

National Logistics Policy (NLP) 

• NLP is a comprehensive effort to address issues of high cost and inefficiency by laying down an overarching interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral and multi-jurisdictional framework for the development of the entire logistics ecosystem
• NLP targets to bring the logistics cost down to 8 per cent. 
• The NLP expects this reduction through the implementation of a five-pronged strategy. 
  • Pushing up the share of railways from the current 28 per cent to 40 per cent. 
    • The current emphasis on high-speed, high-volume “dedicated freight corridors” with committed time-tables, along with RORO (roll-on roll-off) options will help enormously.
  • Setting up multi-modal logistics parks.
    • Multi-modal logistics parks are to be developed by encouraging private investment in hotspots identified on the GatiShakti platform. 
    • The adoption of standardised multi-use containers is to be emphasised. 
  • Giving special emphasis to inland water transportation, coastal shipping, and moving liquid bulk cargo via pipelines. 
  • Specific plans are to be drawn up for 15 industries that constitute the majority of bulk cargo movement. 
  • Digital integration is to be achieved for tracking and monitoring. 
    • A new platform called Unified Logistics Interface Platform or Ulip will offer open access to relevant data crucial to tracking and expediting cargo movement by integrating today’s standalone e-portals of the railways, customs, aviation and commerce authorities. 
• The outcome of all these efforts is to be monitored by a Logistics Ease Across Different States (LEADS) survey. 

Conclusion

• These measures will put India amongst the top 25 nations in terms of logistics efficiency by 2030, which can then surely lead to the aspiration of being amongst the top 10 by 2047, when India turns 100.