In a move to ease the transportation of goods, the government is planning a common platform integrating all transactions involved in their production and export. The World Bank Logistics Performance Index ranked India 35 in 2016 as compared to 54 in 2014. The commerce department has initiated work on an integrated logistics portal or logistics marketplace to connect buyers with logistics service providers with all the government agencies such as Customs, Port Community Systems, Sea and Air Port terminals, Shipping lines, Railways, among others.
Customs department will also get integrated with the portal. Logistics costs in India are pegged at 13-14% of the GDP are higher than those in developed countries and the government aims to reduce it to 10% by 2022. Form point of production to export, there are 64 transactions and 37 government agencies involved. The major challenges are multiple regulatory policy regimes, no seamless movement of goods and lack of single window clearance and coordination among various stakeholders.
[Source: The Economic Times]
