Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that launch of the National Logistics Policy (NLP) is a significant step in fulfilling the ‘Pran’ of India being a developed country.
Launching the policy, he said, “To ensure quick last-mile delivery, end transport-related challenges, save time and money of the manufacturers and prevent wastage of the agro-products, concerted efforts were made and one of the manifestations of those efforts is today’s National Logistics Policy”.
The resulting improvement in coordination will lead to the desired speed in the sector.
The policy will offer a framework to set up multi-modal logistics parks (MMLPs) in key markets, while ensuring faster first and last-mile connectivity.
“From 13-14 per cent logistics cost, we should all aim to bring it to single-digit as soon as possible. This, in a way, is a low-hanging fruit, if we have to become globally competitive,” the Prime Minister emphasised.
He said that the NLP will bring new energy to all sectors. The policy is a beginning and policy plus performance is equal to progress. When parameters, roadmap and timeline for performance come together then policy plus performance equal to progress emerges, he elaborated.
He pointed out that the total capacity of Indian ports has increased significantly and the average turnaround time of container vessels has come down from 44 hours to 26 hours. For promoting export, 40 air cargo terminals have been constructed, 30 airports have been provided cold-storage facilities and 35 multimodal hubs are coming up in the country.
The Prime Minister said that Unified Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP) will bring all the digital services related to the transportation sector into a single portal, freeing the exporters from a host of very long and cumbersome processes.
Similarly, under the policy, a new digital platform Ease of logistics Services, E-Logs, has also been started. “Through this portal, industry associations can directly take up any such matters which are causing problems in their operations and performance with the Government agencies. A complete system has also been put in place for the speedy resolution of such cases,” he said.
