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The logistics division, under the Commerce Ministry, is working on a series of measures to develop an integrated logistics infrastructure in the country.

This includes information crowd-sourcing, a National Data Analytics Tool, National Logistics Portal, and National Logistics Skills Council, according to Anant Swarup, Joint Secretary, Logistics, Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Truck industry

“We are not looking only at road development but also other modes such as railways, coastal, and inland waterways,” he said in a keynote address at the grand finale of ‘Lead the Road,’ a transporters’ meet, organised by BusinessLine at Gurugram on March 14, to highlight the various issues related to transporters.

The 10th edition of the event saw stakeholders, including truck owners, bankers and government officials, discuss various issues related to the truck industry.

The event was presented by IndianOil Corporation and powered by YES Bank, with NewsX as the television partner.

Swarup said India’s advantage is that data is available in digital form. For instance, through eWay Bill, road data is available on a real-time basis, including the origin and destination of the truck, and the cargo that is being transported.

Railway data come from Freight Operations Information Systems, Customs data from ICEGATE, and port data from Port Community System.

However, there is no integration among these data. “We don’t know what to do with the data, and how to use it. We are now developing a National Data Analytical tool to help us plan better ,” he said. The National Logistics Portal will have an eMarket Place to help small truck owners. Today’s problem is that most owners have one or two vehicles and do not have the power to negotiate with clients on freight, when compared to large fleet owners. They do not know where the market and demand exists. In the portal, a vehicle owner can get registered to offer a service and users can put in their demand. For instance, if a person puts in a demand that he has 50 tonnes of cargo to be transported to Nagpur from Delhi, registered truckers will get an alert and anybody can provide a quote for transportation, he said.

On shortage of drivers and skilled drivers, Swarup said there is an anomaly, with both trained drivers with a course certificate and untrained drivers getting the same salary. There should be a distinction between the two. When this was taken up with the industry, they said this is a price-sensitive segment and that they cannot afford to add costs. However, without increasing the cost, the industry can take only certified drivers, he said.

On delays in RTOs and frequent stoppage of vehicles on highways, Swarup said the government is well aware of this.

To plug this loophole, the government has developed an app called Safar (available in Google Play Store), which has four options: bribe is being asked; road is not good; accident; or congestion.

The driver has to click one of the options and the details of the driver or the vehicle number are not required.

“It is only crowd sourcing of information. We get the Lat-Lon, and based on that, we generate the heat map to find out where the problem is, and start talking to the State government to see if there is a pattern and solve the problem,” he said.

Launched on February 19, the app is yet to become popular. The industry needs to popularise it to help take up issues with the government , he said.

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