Multi-Modal Logistics Parks: Revolutionising Logistics Industry In India
Multimodal logistics parks are large areas with rail and road connectivity from where goods are seamlessly transferred to trains and other transportation modes. The freight from production zones is shipped to a nearby logistics park, where it is aggregated and shipped on a larger vehicle to reach another logistics park near the consumption zone, where it will be disaggregated and distributed to the consumption zones inside the city. The first multimodal logistics park in India is destined to be in Chennai. The state and union government and the private sector have supported the development of multimodal logistics parks, which will be governed by State Industry Development Boards, responsible for acquiring land and providing infrastructure and utilities. The government of India launched this facility in 2017 under the Logistics Efficiency Enhancement Programme (LEEP), which was highly recommended by the National Logistics Policy of 2022. The top logistics parks in India are designed for the continuous transfer of freight that will ultimately cut logistics costs and also minimise delays due to integrated freight handling facilities. Their infrastructure will support fragmented warehouses and function as a central warehouse for freight operators from surrounding regions.
Significance
These kinds of logistics parks are assumed to revolutionise the logistics sector in India as they offer many advantages compared to traditional logistics facilities. A multimodal logistics park in India has much-reduced logistics costs, which will help provide value-added services like packaging, labelling, repackaging, and customs clearance. This will ultimately reduce the overall cost from 14% to less than 10% of GDP. Multimodal parks are known to improve efficiency by increasing warehouse capacity, enhancing freight movement efficiency, and reducing freight transportation costs. These are among the top logistics parks in India that offer modern and mechanised handling, thus providing low handling costs by co-location of large warehouses and value-added services. They will also help ensure improved train services due to the use of modern equipment and electronic data interchange, thus helping aggregate demand. This will further reduce the time taken to move goods from the production centre to ports and facilitate container movement to seaports for inland demands. Since MMLPs are usually situated outside city limits, it will help lower the warehousing charges as the land costs in these areas are lower, reducing freight movement on busy city roads. Moving the goods in larger trucks will also reduce the overall freight cost.
Sustainability
The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) aim at reducing carbon emissions by 33% of its GDP by 2030. MMLP will significantly contribute to this as the decarbonisation of the logistics sector, which contributes about 14% of carbon emissions in the country, will help reduce carbon emissions. These parks will also be located on the outskirts of major urban areas; thus, decongesting the city roads will help cut storage and handling costs, reduce delivery time, save fuel wastage, and bring down pollution.
Bottom Line
India is aiming to build superior connectivity and robust infrastructure. And multimodal logistics parks will contribute to it by helping India become a manufacturing hub by strengthening teh logistics sector.