Freight Smart Cities
Recently a plan for the creation of Freight Smart Cities has been presented by the Logistics Division of the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India.
The objective of the scheme is to create opportunities to improve the efficiency of urban freight transportation and reduce the cost of logistics.
Implementation:
- Under the ‘Freight Smart Cities’ initiative, a ‘City Level Logistics Committee’ will be constituted at the city level.
- These committees will also include relevant government departments and local level agencies, state and responding central ministries and agencies.
- These will include the private sector involved in logistics services as well as users of logistics services.
- These committees will jointly prepare logistics plans for the city to implement measures to improve performance at the local level.
Requirement
- The cost of consignment activities in the final stages of delivery of goods to customers in Indian cities accounts for 50 per cent of the total cost of India’s growing e-commerce supply chain.
- This improvement in the logistics of cities will further facilitate freight movement, reduce costs, and give a boost to all sectors of the economy.
- In addition, urban freight demand is expected to increase by 140% over the next ten years.
Cities covered under the scheme:
- Under this scheme, 10 cities will be covered in the first phase on an immediate basis. After this, there is a plan to expand the list to 75 cities in the second phase, after which it will be expanded to the entire country, which will include all state capitals and cities with a population of more than 10 lakhs. In this, the list of cities to be selected will be finalized in consultation with the state governments.
Source – The Hindu
