30 Multimodal hubs to bridge all gaps
The Multimodal Transportation Conclave 2019 gave the industry a chance to identify gaps in implementation of relevant policies and good practices in business, while sharing lessons learnt in working towards the common objective of growth.
India has firmed up the contours of its ambitious multimodal programme to reduce logistics costs and make the economy competitive. To work towards the development of an integrated multimodal transport infrastructure in the country, PHD Chamber of Commerce & Industry organised the Multimodal Transportation Conclave 2019 in the capital.
Ashish Wig, Chairman, Road, Ports & Other Infrastructure Committee, PHD Chamber, said, “Keeping in mind an integrated multimodal transport in the country is the need of the hour. It is not necessary for road to be the most engaged mode of transport, or only Sagarmala to suffice. What is important is last-mile connectivity and for this, all the segments of the industry have to come together.”
Dr Ranjeet Mehta, Principal Director, PHD Chamber of Commerce, said, “The focus of Government of India, in recent times, has been to reduce the logistics cost to make the economy globally competitive. The government has a plan to create 35 multimodal logistics hubs and around 50 economic corridors.” Talking about how agricultural logistics can be integrated with the multimodal transportation system, Pawanexh Kohli, CEO, NCCD, said, “Like ‘Make in India’, there is also ‘Produce of India’. Agriculture is the world’s first solar power factory, an enterprise that takes raw material, oil, resources and converts them into value by utilising solar power. Whenever we talk about ‘Make in India’, we must not forget that agriculture provides 1.1 billion tonnes of produce every year, and that produce has to be handled through logistics. When we speak of ‘Start-up India’, we cannot ignore that the bulk of India is rural. We also have to incorporate ‘Start-up Rural India’ and when we say that, we have to make sure we have the necessary connectivity systems to see what rural India has to offer to us. We tend to measure the system in terms of yield, as an output per unit of effort or land in the agriculture. There has to be a change in the mindset by not looking at how much you produce but how much has got converted into economic value, which is known as the game of productivity.”
We need to not only look at multimodality of freight movement but also at what we are proposing to tranship within the country and export to other countries
“Post the World War, industrialised relations and industries have the capacity to absorb manpower. Industries, Artificial Intelligence, modernisation and equipment are not going to bring full employment if you are going to ignore agriculture. There is no ‘Smart City’, no developed country in the world without having links with agriculture. No industrialised world can survive without agriculture,” added Kohli. “If you actually analyse the way goods move around the world, you will find that on an average, 60-80 per cent movement around the world is on agricultural produce. Even in India we have the world’s largest population density of vegetarians. There was also a mindset earlier that as the country develops, it moves more into processed food but it’s really the opposite that’s true. Agricultural produce is the most important sector till date across the world, but cold chain needs to be maintained if we want to bring the produce from farm to fork. The government offers a subsidy of up to 35 per cent for reefer vans. The reefer vans are also getting loans of up to 90 per cent of the cost, but somehow the industry is not able to take advantage of this particular initiative,” he highlighted.
Leena Nandan, IAS, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Government of India, said, “We need to not only look at multimodality of freight movement but also at what we are proposing to tranship within the country and export to various other countries.” She informed that the government of Assam had already provisioned a landscape of 200 acres to make for a logistics hub at Jogighopa, that would facilitate the transport of agriculture and horticulture produce of the entire Northeast to the mainstream, and also for export purposes. The groundwork to making this one of the critical logistics hubs is progressing on a fast pace. She also added, “We are working with the railways and Inland Waterways Authority of India to develop this MMLP in Jogigopha as a hub for cold chain for agriculture products of the Northeast, for movement within India as well as exports within the critical locations of Bangladesh and Chittagong.” “How we have visualised it is, cold chain facilities will come up in the initial stages because currently, we have excellent but perishable commodities that are produced in the Northeast, but there is no reason why we are not able to take them to the rest of the country or the rest of the world. We believe that Jogigopha can serve as a connecting point for all these products,” she stated. She also said that the Ministry was carrying out development of MMLPs in the country in partnership with infrastructure ministries like shipping and railways.