Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to launch the national logistics policy that aims to promote seamless movement of goods across the country.
How big is the sector?
The size of the sector is estimated to be somewhere close to 250 billion dollars and is expected to grow at a pace of 10-12% to reach 380 billion dollars by 2025.
Reduce the cost of logistics from 14-18 percent of GDP to global best practices of 8 percent by 2030. Countries like the US, South Korea, Singapore, and certain European nations have such a low logistics cost-to-GDP ratio.
Assuming the current cost is 16 percent of GDP, that would mean that logistics costs have to be cut by half to be near global benchmarks by 2030, assuming the global benchmark does not improve further.
Improve the country’s Logistics Performance Index (LPI) ranking to be among top 25 countries by 2030.
This is not ambitious enough.
India is the fifth largest economy in the world. If it has to move fast to be among the three largest economies and join the league of developed nations, it has to aim to be among the top 10 in the LPI by 2030. It has to match the pace of South Korea.
Create data-driven decision support systems (DSS) to enable an efficient logistics ecosystem. This is key. The DSS was needed yesterday, and time is running out fast.
The policy’s target is to ensure that logistical issues are minimised, exports grow manifold, and small industries and the people working in them benefit significantly.