The Prime Minister has called the launch of the National Logistics Policy a significant step in fulfilling the ‘Pran’ of India being a developed country. “To ensure quick last-mile delivery, end transport-related challenges, save time and money of the manufacturers, prevent wastage of the agro-products, concerted efforts were made and one of the manifestations of those efforts is today’s National Logistics Policy”, he has said. The resulting improvement in coordination will lead to the desired speed in the sector. The need for a national logistics policy was felt since India's logistics cost is high 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. Reduced logistics cost improves efficiency cutting across various sectors of the economy, encouraging value addition and enterprise. Since 2014, the government has put significant emphasis on improving both, Ease of Doing Business and the Ease of Living. According to the Logistics Report by Motilal Oswal Financial Services, the policy is focused on the development of support infrastructure, reduction of system inefficiencies and high usage of technology to cut costs. With better tracking and digitisation, the industry can become more organised, however, timely implementation would be the key, the report stated. “This is a holistic effort to increase the efficiencies of all aspects of the logistics value chain. Over the past five fiscals, the government has invested close to Rs 15 trillion in augmenting hard infrastructure such as roads, rail, ports and airports,” Jagannarayan Padmanabhan, Director and Practice Leader-Transport and Logistics, CRISIL, said. “While this trend is expected to continue, streamlining of the functional aspects such as ease of movement, common interfaces and platforms for service providers and users, and skill development focused on the logistics vocations was imperative. The new policy clearly aims to achieve these. Its right implementation and widespread adoption will help structurally reduce logistics costs and make a material difference to the growth of India's manufacturing and services sectors.”