? Gujarat top performer in LEADS report
New Delhi, Nov 8 (FN Agency) The poll-bound state of Uttar Pradesh, which will test the five-year rule of Yogi Adityanath-led government in 2022, has leapfrogged 7 ranks since 2019, driven by policy initiatives, in a report on Logistics Ease Across Different States (LEADS) 2021, unveiled by Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Monday. The states of Uttarakhand and Jharkhand have also witnessed a remarkable improvement in their ranks compared to the 2019 LEADS ranking, emerging as top improvers. The report comes at a time when the Government is looking at leveraging on efficient logistics to make logistics more affordable. “Inputs given by LEADS Report 2021 can lead the way to bring down logistics cost by 5% over the next 5 years. The report will push healthy competition for improvement in logistics development among states.
Competitive and cooperative federalism leads to an ecosystem for excellence by bringing in a healthy competitive spirit where everyone is persuaded to improve,” said Goyal, after the release of the LEADS report. The report ranks states on the basis of their logistics ecosystem, highlights the key logistics related challenges faced by the stakeholders and includes suggestive recommendations. While Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab are top performers in the LEADS report with Gujarat ranking first on the basis of actions such as the widening of roads, implementation of faceless services in license renewals, expansion of warehousing.
Within the north-eastern states and Himalayan Region, Jammu and Kashmir is the top ranker followed by Sikkim and Meghalaya. Delhi stands at the top rank among other UTs. Inputs of the report will serve as stimulants to the GatiShakti National Master Plan which is expected to catalyse the next generation of multimodal infrastructure development in the country. Goyal highlighted the strides taken by India in infrastructure development. The speed of highway construction has increased three fold from 12 km/day in 2013-14 to 37 km/day in 2020-21 and there was a four fold increase in railways capex from Rs 54,000 crore in 2013-14 to Rs. 2.15 lakh crore in 2021-22. While in the 5 years before 2014 only 60 panchayats could be connected with optical fibre, in the last 7 years, more than 1.5 lakh gram panchayats connected with optical fibre. Goyal observed that infrastructure, quality services and conducive regulatory framework are key to creating resilient logistics and called for improvement of logistics across all states which will be a force multiplier for the entire logistics ecosystem. He outlined a number of suggestions for states including framing of state logistics policy and logistics master plan, using single-window clearance system for establishment of grievance redressal mechanism.