Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the occasion of his 72nd birthday, will gift to the country the National Logistics Policy (NLP), which is aimed at promoting seamless movement of goods and enhancing the competitiveness of the industry. The policy is expected to focus on areas such as process re-engineering, digitisation, and multi-modal transport. The move assumes significance as high logistics cost impacts the competitiveness of domestic goods in the international market.

“The need for a national logistics policy was felt since the logistics cost in India is high as compared to other developed economies. It is imperative to reduce the logistics cost in India for improving the competitiveness of Indian goods both in domestic as well as export markets," an official statement said on Friday.

Reduced logistics cost improves efficiency cutting across various sectors of the economy, encouraging value addition and enterprise. It said that the policy is an effort to address issues of high cost and inefficiency by laying down an overarching interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral and multi-jurisdictional framework for the development of the entire logistics ecosystem.

First introduced in 2020 during Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget speech, the policy, according to the government, will bring in an integrated and tech-enabled approach to logistics operations to bridge the efficiency gap. On September 13, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said the government has stressed the need to reduce logistics costs in the country from the current levels of 13-14 per cent of GDP.