National Logistics Policy has potential to usher ease of moving: India Inc

The National Logistics Policy unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday will substantially reduce transportation costs across the entire supply chain and has the potential to usher in “ease of moving” in the country, India Inc said.

The prime minister unveiled the National Logistics Policy that seeks to address challenges facing the transport sector and bring down the logistics cost of businesses from 13-14 per cent to a single digit.

At a grand launch event, he said the policy aims to expedite the last-mile delivery, helping businesses save time and money.

While the new policy addresses challenges of the logistics sector, it together with the infrastructure augmentation plan PM GatiShakti will address gaps, he said.

CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said besides improving ease of doing business and ease of living, the policy along with other pillars of the PM Gati-Shakti has the potential to usher in an unprecedented era of ‘ease of moving’ in the country, ensuring speedier and seamless movement of cargo and people across various modes of transport.

He said the reduced logistics cost and increased efficiencies will energise the economy across sectors in multiple ways and take us many steps closer to emerging as a global manufacturing powerhouse.

Assocham secretary general Deepak Sood described the National Logistics Policy as a major structural transformative initiative which will substantially reduce transaction costs across the entire supply chain.

“It (the policy) will facilitate India being embedded across global value chains, as we move ahead on the path towards Bharat@100,” Sood added.

The Union government has been working on the National Logistics Policy for three years.

The commerce ministry released a draft logistics policy for consultation in 2019, but it was delayed due to Covid-19 pandemic. The National Logistics Policy was once again announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Budget for 2022-23.

The draft policy provides for the government creating a single point of reference for all logistics and trade facilitation matters, reducing costs for the logistics sector to 10 per cent in five years. The logistics sector is estimated at 13-14 per cent of GDP.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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