The Centre will soon frame a policy on integration of various modes of transport aimed at smooth transition of cargo, Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari said.
“Till date, we have been working in silos,” he said, while inaugurating the India Integrated Transport and Logistics Summit here.
“We will frame a policy for an integrated approach for our transportation network. We will take stakeholders’ views, hold meeting with the Prime Minister’s Office and if necessary, go to the Cabinet,” he said.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu proposed a single company for multi-modal transportation of cargo. “We have discussed in the past the idea of one integrated company that can provide end-to-end logistic solution to our customers,” he said. “We need the integration of roads, ports, waterways and airways.” He added that the Railways is targeting an increase in freight traffic on routes beyond 400 km.
“Different modes of transport need to complement each other rather than dealing with them individually,” Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia said that dependence of cargo on roads is ‘disproportionate’. “Our reliance on roads is three times more than China’s; so we need to re-look into this...”
Railway Board Chairman A.K. Mittal said logistics costs were high in India, “using almost 4% of our GDP,” and pegged at 5% by 2020.
He said although shipping is the most efficient and cost saving way of transporting goods but roadways, which is the “most inefficient and costly” means, has the highest share of freight transportation. “The transportation share in cargo is inversely proportional to its efficiencies. The reason is that road is able to provide an end-to-end solution. Goods are directly loaded in trucks from its manufacturing point and goes up till the consumer directly,” Mr. Mittal said. He said instead of complementing each other, road and rail sectors were competing with each other on the same routes.
The government is working on a common IT platform for tracking air cargo by stakeholders, civil aviation secretary RN Choubey said. “We are developing a common framework for movement of air cargo across all stakeholders within next one-and-a-half years," he said.
“Air cargo industry in India has registered an impressive growth rate of 7% in the last decade. Air cargo is expected to register 9% growth over the next few years as compared to half the growth rate for global air cargo trade as a whole,” Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said, adding that although air cargo accounts for 1% of total freight, its share is 35% in terms of value of goods.
