As National Logistics Policy is set to complete one year of its launch on September 17, the government is yet to declare the actual logistics cost and banking upon the baseline of India’s logistics cost that stands at 8-14 percent of the country’s GDP and is of the believe that it would be able to calculate the logistics cost from next year.
In an interaction with reporters, Sumita Dawra, who is Special Secretary (Logistics) at Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), said, “We will be able to calculate the logistics cost from the next year. At present, we have a baseline estimate and from next year we will do a survey based thing to calculate the cost.”
The National Council of Applied Economic Research and ADB have been engaged in the exercise, said Dawra, who is a 1991 IAS officer. On the coordination among different ministries, Dawra said, “All the ministries such as Railways, Road Transport & Highways, Shipping, etc, are working in tandem to achieve the goals. In the coming years, the efforts of the government to bring down the logistics cost would help in reducing the cost.” According to the Special Secretary, the aim of the National Logistics Policy 2022 is to develop a technologically enabled, integrated, cost efficient, resilient, sustainable and trusted logistics ecosystem in the country for accelerated and inclusive growth.
“India is also aiming to further improve its ranking in the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) to top 25 by 2030. India was ranked 44th on the index in 2018 and has now climbed to 38th in the 2023 listing. The country’s performance has drastically improved from 2014, when it was ranked 54th on the LPI,” she said, adding that the DPIIT is also in talks with the World Bank as well as International Monetary Fund to change the methodology while calculating the ranking under LPI. Unified Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP), which was launched in September 2022, is part of the National Logistics Policy, which is an initiative in the logistics sector to bring ease of doing business in the logistics sector by simplifying the logistics processes, improving its efficiency, bringing in transparency and visibility, and reducing logistics cost and time.
