According to the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, as per information from Logistics Ease Across Different States (LEADS) Report 2021, logistics cost will be brought down by 5% in the next five years. He said that Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab had acquired the top three positions in the Indian logistics ranking. He also praised the actions taken by the government of Gujarat against LEADS 2019 recommendations, including widening the roads, implementing faceless services in licensing, expanding warehousing, among others. He even congratulated UP for leapfrogging seven ranks since 2019, which is the highest among all states, driven by policy initiatives and higher infrastructure spending in logistics. LEADS 2021 has increased with the domestic and Exim Logistics Private Limited ecosystem of the state. He added that the pace of highway construction had increased thrice from 12 km per day in 2013-14 to 37 km per day in 2020-21, and the railway Capex has increased four times from Rs 54,000 crore to Rs 2.15 lakh crore. According to him, infrastructure, quality services, and a conducive regulatory framework are the three pillars of logistics. LEADS want to create an ecosystem for excellence by bringing in a healthy competitive spirit. Improving logistics services across the country will be a force multiplier for the logistics ecosystem. LEADS 2018 focused on export-import trades and assessed the efficiency of logistics in state and Union Territory (UT). LEADS 2019 focused on both domestic and international trade, while LEADS 2021 focused on analysing domestic and Exim logistics in the state. It has used objective parameters and perception-based indicators for index formulation. The LEADS report includes a detailed analysis of the LEADS performance of states and UTs, with the issues and challenges faced by the stakeholders and suggestions to mitigate the issues. Image Source