India is burdened with high logistics costs which account for
about 13% of the value of goods sold in the economy compared with 8% in major
economies. Along with its efforts including the 'Make In India ‘ program and
improvement in infrastructure , Government of India has made number of
decisions aiming at transforming the country's logistics sector . Multi modal logisticsparks are a key policy
initiative of the Government of India to improve the country’s s logistics
sector by lowering overall freights costs, reducing vehicular pollution and
congestion and cutting warehousing costs. The benefits that these logistic park developers in India is
going to bring to the nation are –
- It will enable an effective transportation
and timely movement of goods from one place to another.
- Reduce cost of production by minimizing the
need for large inventors.
- Less capital required for warehouses.
- Value-added services such as customs
clearance with bonded storage yards, quarantine zones, testing facilities,
and warehousing management services are provided.
As Arun Jaitley said,”An effective multi modal logistics and
transport sector will make our economy more competitive “. Industry is adopting
new technologies to provide faster, cheaper, more reliable and sustainable
delivery model. All mediums of logistics services like air transport, land transport,
rail transport, water transport are going through a time of rapid and
unrivalled transformation. It is hard to see how production structure can be
improved radically unless India builds new logistics network.
Keeping pace with India’s rapid economic growth is the expansion
of the country’s logistics sector. The movement of freight in the country in
2015 has nearly become double of that in 2008. Government expects physical
process to transport communities in the country to continue its growth
trajectory, with expected annual growth of 8%–10% over the next 10 years.
According to a study commissioned by MORTH, the logistics sector as a whole is
poised to expand at roughly 1.2 times the rate of India’s gross domestic
product growth through 203. By this time it is expected to generate $360
billion in value added. The Logistics Performance Index (LPI), a ranking
published by the World Bank to measure the logistics performance of countries, India
managed to improve its performance in 2016. India’s LPI ranking rose to 35th in
2016, up from 46th in 2012. However, India's rank still lags behind some of its
economic peers, including other Asian countries. The best logistics performer
in Asia is Singapore. However, there remains a significant challenge to the
development of the sector. Logistics costs are high in India are high relative
to costs in developed countries.
Higher logistics
costs in India are primarily driven by unfavorable inter-modal mix (60%
of freight movement skewed toward road transport despite the lower freight cost
of rail transport), Inefficient fleet mix (characterized by smaller,
inefficient trucks), and underdeveloped material handling infrastructure
(characterized by a fragmented industry consisting of small, unorganized
warehouses with limited mechanism). Another major cause of underdeveloped road
infrastructure (with a limited presence of national highways) is the lack of a
national logistics policy, institutional and regulatory bottlenecks.