Prospects of Multimodal transport in India
As per a NITI AAYOG report (June 2021), India’s logistics sector comprises over 10,000 types of products and has a market size of INR 11 lakh crore. Currently, commercial activities in India generate about 4.6 billion tonnes of freight annually, which results in over three trillion tonne-km of transportation demand at a cost of INR 9.5 lakh crore. Between 2015 and 2020, e freight demand increased by 28 percent. Demand for goods will spur growth across freight modes.
India has traditionally relied on road transportation for domestic freight movement. Road also acts as a feeder service to freight movements through railway, shipping, and air. The share of road transportation is 64%, followed by Rail at 27%, Coastal Shipping at 5%, and Inland waterways at 2%.
The Government of India through the PM Gati Shakti seeks to enable seamless multimodal transport network in India. Share of rail freight is expected to increase due to the Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs) and Private Freight Train Operators (PFTOs).
Inland waterways is in a nascent stage. National Waterways Act came into effect only from 2016. To promote Inland Water Transport (IWT) in the country, 111 waterways (including 5 existing and 106 new) have been declared as National Waterways (NWs). The Jal Marg Vikas Project (JMVP) developed for operations of National Waterway 1 is under progress.
The government launched the ambitious Sagar Mala Program in 2017 with the vision of port-led development.
Rapid development of modern infra enabled with automation and technology across all modes of freight transport will enable a shift towards an efficient multimodal system resulting in clean, efficient, and cost-effective goods transport.?
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1 年Charu, very good article, congrats and Barvo !!!. I took a while to reply on purpose as I wanted to wait and see what comments we will get on this article. India is a land of amazing opportunities and growth. Opportunities - the word itself indicates "chances of development" which means you are on the "path" of achieving something and that Path does not have to be easy (or must be difficult) else it will not be an opportunity. There are no footprints to follow in this process In a country of the size of India, it takes years to realise the benefits of the Upstream strategies to reach or see the benefits at the ground level. This is not just said ... Why is that so? There are multitudes of reasons (Political leadership / Change mgmt / Vested Interest of Bureaucrats / Political system so on and so forth. We have two options 1) Be negative / complain all the time why we do not progress or show results fast enough or 2) Forget everything and continue the righteous path of bringing the nation along towards a brighter future along with a great leader like NaMo !!! And it is upto all of us which path to choose. It is our individual wisdom and Response (Ability)
Founder & Chief Growth Officer at INDICOLD
1 年true . . . there is also a need to democratize all modes of transport . . road has seen the revolution because of the sheer number of service providers . .
Supply Chain and Logistics enthusiast . ( VP - Logistics, Bajaj Electricals), Ex- Britannia, J&J, Mondelez, Hewlett Packard
1 年Just making policies does not resolve the issue. The infrastructure needs to follow the same. Inland Road infra is improving everyday, hence u will see that the share will increase from 64% as in your article to even higher. While under the vision of Mr Gadkari, the road infra is improving, I hardly see that kind of infra improvement in Rail and costal movements. Railways needs to improve the infra of freight corridor, and needs to have dedicated loading and unloading docks ( which are near to warehouseing space of the city ) Inland water transport is a season business, most of our rivers dryup in summer season , and are unviable for any transport movements. Hence there almost no takers for the same. Ur article says 2%, but I doubt. In my opinion this should be less than 0.5%. On paper multi model transport looks very lucrative on paper, but we are a long way before we can say that its a fruitful model for indian economy.
Supply Chain Director | Supply Chain Planning, Logistics, Operations, S&OP and SC Transformation Expert | Middle East, Africa, APAC & India Experience
1 年nicely articulated Charulata Bansal. I shared some benefits of multimodal in a post earlier.
National Logistics Head (South Asia) at pladis Global (McVitie's : Godiva : Ulker) APICS CLTD, Alumni IIM Calcutta, Under-40 Supply Chain Excellence Awardee
1 年Well said????????