Gen. Singh calls for connection between manufacturing-export hubs
The government is expected to soon roll out a national Multi-Modal Transportation plan that will aim to bring in ease of business in the logistics sector, a key enabler in making Indian industry competitive.
A conducive logistic echo system is imperative to bring in new investments while addressing the high logistic costs which have often been cited as one of the key roadblocks to a competitive industry.
Sharing the latest on the development front, Gen V K Singh, Minister of State of Roads and Highways, underlined the need to have total connectivity between various modes in less cost and in a given time.
The General stressed the importance of connecting the manufacturing hub and the exporting hub, along with making transportation between them cheaper to increase the competitiveness of the Industry.
In addition, there is a need to give impetus to technology, he added on Multi-Modal Transportation (MMT) on 1 Oct 2020.
There is a huge opportunity for India to do process re-engineering or streamlining processes, and logistics is one area where a lot of processes can be digitised which can enhance efficiency, he said.
“There is a need to adopt the most appropriate modes of transport depending upon the respective logistic need,” Pawan Kumar Agarwal, Special Secretary Logistics, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, said at a recently convened webinar on multi-modal logistics by CII.
“All modes of transport have their own sets of issues, and we need to understand the entire landscape first as a whole, as there are multiple issues surrounding the Multimodal sector,” he said.
The National MMT plan will focus on the MMT infrastructure. There is a need for unified documentation and a move from largely paper-based documentation to electronic documentation across all modes of transport.
Most importantly there is a need for standardization in terms of the common use of standard terms and language, which will facilitate MMT transportation uniformly across all the modes.
Agarwal emphasized that there are 7 key objectives and initiatives which the government is currently focusing on with an aim to streamline the processes in Logistics.
The first being integration of the MMT Infrastructure.
The second objective would be to ensure the optimal usage of the interconnected multimodal logistics infrastructure.
The other focus areas will be the standardization in terms of the processes, physical assets, terminology, documentation used in different terminals and ports.
Another major initiative will be Digitalization in the MMT sector.
The government is already looking at creating a Unique Identity Number for all the logistic service providers similar to the PAN document for the purpose of better monitoring and real-time data analysis that will enhance better information systems and also address the grievance redressal system.
The other two objectives that Agarwal highlighted were the formalization with accreditation and democratization in the logistics sector which would enable the industry to move towards a robust Multimodal logistics and supply chain and a truly world-class logistics system.
The law for multi-modality and logistics is important, underlined N. Sivasailam Former Special Secretary – Logistics, Ministry of Commerce & Industry.
There needs to be more stress on reducing the cost at the borders and the export and the multimodality at the Economic corridors. This will facilitate the Special Economic Zones, he said. #exports #manufacturing #transportation #investment #projects /fiinews.com
