Reduce cost of logistics to make it Atmanirbhar: NITI Aayog’s  V K Saraswat

September 10, 2020: Dr V K Saraswat, member, NITI Aayog and former chief, DRDO, in the session by PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry on ‘How Logistics Will Contribute To Atma Nirbhar Bharat’ noted that it is important to reduce the cost of logistics to make the sector Atmanirbhar. While explaining the time frame in the shipment, he emphasized that there is a need to improve our on-time delivery to meet last-mile connectivity.

“India is an emerging market for domestic logistics, international logistics, and business fundamentals,” said Dr Saraswat.

“Logistics services need to have increase agility, credential stability, transparency, and speed. The supply chain needs to become a more resilient better ability to adjust and recover from future difficulties. A new surge in warehousing and demand especially, for temperature control warehousing space will be much better. We need to look at automation and robotics to make logistics more efficient and, greater efficient to the management of private warehouses,” he said.

Optimal use of infrastructure
Pawan Kumar Agarwal, special secretary (Logistics), ministry of commerce and industry discussed that looking for logistics from the lens of the cost would be unfair. The government has made huge investments in infrastructure, with the support of the private sector. Warehousing and other facilities have largely been created by private companies.

Agarwal mentioned that we have the quality infrastructure in place; we need to optimally use it to our advantage. The logistic sector requires joint efforts of the government at all levels along with simplification of the process across Ministries that will further enhance the potential of this sector.

Agarwal discussed that we need to have a good sense of providers, for which we need to put in place a process of registrations for the logistics sector. Formalization and standardization of this can help to bring trust and make this sector multi-modal. Digital technologies offer a lot of opportunities to bring in efficiency & to ensure the visibility of warehouses.

“We can professionalize this sector by bringing in certification courses and democratize the logistics sector ensuring more efficient and effective,” he added.

We need to reduce the cost of the logistics sector, mentioned Dr. V K Saraswat (Padmabhushan), Hon’ble Member, @NITIAayog in the session by @phdchamber on ‘How #Logistics Will Contribute To #AtmaNirbharBharat #PHDCCI #commerce #Logistics @DoC_GoI @CimGOI @Logistics_MoC pic.twitter.com/04QN9LSNoa

— PHD Chamber (@phdchamber) September 9, 2020

Trustworthy logistics partner
D K Aggarwal, president, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry said “India needs to be a trustworthy partner in this global supply chain and become a manufacturing hub. We need to have ease of doing business in the place; reducing the cost of business, for which logistics plays a pivotal role.”

He discussed the need to have a strong logistics performance index that helps smoothen the process; maintain quality of trade and transport infrastructure; get competitive price shipments; ability to track and trace the shipment and be time-bound towards delivering the shipments. This index will help to minimize the gaps and help in making logistics multi-modal, aiding to last-mile connectivity.