Wooing the world

As a country, India’s industries are certainly looking forward to the most hopeful of days. And the logistics industry is no exception. With the Indian Government opening up trade with Bhutan, Nepal, and now Japan, the logistics industry has a reason to hope for better days ahead.

Indian ports, long since languishing as just boondocks, are have a mega-makeover planned under the aegis of the government in-charge. The Union Minister of Shipping Nitin Gadkari, has set a daring target of doubling the Indian port capacity from 800 million tonnes to 1,600 million tonnes. This includes new ports, upgrading old ones and dredging them to make way for bigger vessels, increasing connectivity from ports to logistics parks/ ICDs via Railways, and generally improving the pre-Independence capacity to something that resembles the 21st century.

On the other hand, besides improving connectivity, opening up channels of trade is as important a task. With the PM’s trip to Japan, the government is signalling to the business powerhouses in that nation that we are wide open for business. Our country is looking at collaboration in terms of logistics, connectivity, technology and warehousing. With Nepal, and with Bhutan, the message was similar. Trade is the mover of fortunes.

In fact, the rate of opening up of ICDs/warehouses (big and small) has spooled up. The PM laid the foundation stone to the JNPT’s SEZ, affirming a PPP investment of over 4,000 crore.

The fact is, we need more invest- Editor ments to shore up the state of our ‘ever-nascent’ logistics and cargo industry to a respectable one which befits a country of a billion and more.