Context
Centre launched the "Secured Logistics Document Exchange (SLDE)" along with a Calculator for Green House Gas Emissions to improve ease of doing business.
What is "Secured Logistics Document Exchange"?
- The document exchange is a digital initiative to reduce logistics costs, improve logistics efficiency, and promote multi-modality and sustainability in logistics.
- It will replace the manual process of generation, exchange and compliance of logistics documents with a digitized, secure and seamless document exchange system.
- This will enable the keeping and regulation of logistics-related documents digitally using Aadhaar and blockchain-based security protocols for data security and authentication.
- It will also provide a complete audit trail of-
- document transfer
- faster execution of the transaction
- lower cost of shipping and overall carbon footprint
- easy verification of the authenticity of documents
- lowered risk of fraud, etc.
The need
- The initiatives have been launched to fill the gap where no action has yet been taken by private players or ministries.
Significance
- Improved India’s ranking in the Logistics Performance Index.
Logistics Performance Index (LPI)
- LPI is an interactive benchmarking tool for logistics.
- Created by: World Bank
- It helps countries to identify the challenges and opportunities they face in their performance on trade logistics and suggest what they can do to improve their performance.
- Dimensions: It is the weighted average of the country scores on six key dimensions:
- customs performance
- infrastructure quality
- ease of arranging shipments
- logistics services quality
- consignments tracking and tracing
- timeliness of shipments.
- Germany and Sweden are the most efficient and highest-ranked LPI countries as per the 2018 LPI.
- India was ranked at 44th position in 2018.
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- Improved logistics efficiency, reduce cost, and will promote sustainability.
Status of India’s logistic sector
- The Indian logistics sector is growing at a Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.5%.
- The comprehensive logistics costs amount to almost 14% of India’s GDP.
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Indian government initiatives in the logistics sector
- The government aims to reduce the logistics cost to 8 percent in five years.
- Multi-Modal Logistics Parks with seamlessly synergized logistics services are also being established.
- The Integrated Logistics and Manufacturing Zones (ILMZs) that combine railway, road and port infrastructure will be made available along with the manufacturing set-up to ensure the smooth functioning of container management and movement along with the operations of the manufacturers.
- A National Logistics Policy is also set to be launched soon.
- Under the policy, a National Logistics Council (NLC), Central Advisory Committee on Logistics (CACL), and an Empowered Group of Secretaries (eGoS) are planned for effective coordination and implementation.
- The development of the Eastern and western fright Corridor is also an initiative towards achieving logistics support.
- Along with the SLDE, the Centre also launched a Green House Gas Emission calculator as well.
- The GHG Calculator is an efficient, user-friendly tool and provides for calculating and comparing GHG emissions across different modes.
