Gadkari promises world class transport and logistics infrastructure in 2 years

The government is committed to providing world class transport and logistics infrastructure in the country within two years, says Nitin Gadkari, union minister of road transport and highways, shipping, water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation.

He said work has already begun for setting up logistics parks at Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Surat and Guwahati.

Addressing a session on `Opportunity in Infrastructure, Logistics Technology and Equipment' at the recently-concluded World Food India 2017 conference in New Delhi Gadkari reiterated the government's commitment for providing world class transport and logistics infrastructure in the country to support the growth of economic activity.

He said the speed of construction of national highways has gathered considerable momentum. The country had just 96,000 km of NH three years back, but this has grown to nearly 1.7 lakh km, and will soon reach a length of 2 lakh km. This will provide more farmers in remote areas with access to markets for their produce.

The minister further said that 44 economic corridors and 24 multi modal logistics parks have been planned under the government's flagship programme Bharatmala. These are being planned on the hub and spoke model to facilitate efficient movement of freight along routes of economic importance. The multi modal logistics parks are being planned as centres of freight aggregation with warehousing, cold storage and other such facilities. These parks will be built on national highways outside cities, so they will help reduce traffic congestion and also reduce pollution.

He said the economic corridors and multi modal logistics parks will facilitate faster movement of farm produce to food processing centres and to markets. This will raise the income of farmers, give a boost to the food processing industry and create a large number of jobs.

Gadkari also said the Sagarmala Programme of the shipping ministry will be contributing to the growth of the country's food economy in a big way with 14 Coastal Economic Zones planned under this programme. Two mega food   processing parks are being planned at Kakinada and Satara and a cost of Rs140 crores. Support is being given to fishermen under the programme to develop their skills and raise their productivity. Facility for processing, grading and packaging of fish will be developed at Paradeep Port. In addition to this, 111 waterways are being developed as national waterways. River Ganga, Brahmaputra, Barak are already under development.

He said water transport will reduce logistics costs, which in turn will benefit the food processing industry. The development of River Ganga and Brahmaputra for transport will also make it easier to move produce to Bangladesh.

Further, the efficiency of the 12 major ports has been growing rapidly, and they have been making profits consistenty over the last three years.

Dry ports are being developed at Jalna, Vidarbha and Nasik to begin with. The availability of ports will give a boost to movement of goods.