<center style='bttom-border:1px solid black;'>
    <p>
    Panel Discussion & Ideation Session on<br>
    Strengthening Logistics & Warehousing for Sustainable Growth<br>
    Held on October 27, 2020, from 2:00 P.M. to 3:15 P.M.<br>
    Held at 4:00 PM on 16th July 2021
    </p>
    </center>

    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    ASSOCHAM organized an online Panel discussion & Ideation Session on Strengthening
    Logistics and Warehousing for Sustainable Growth on October 27, 2020. The Chief Guest
    at the session was   Pawan Kumar Agarwal, Special Secretary, Logistics, Ministry of
    Commerce and Industry, Government of India.   Deepak Sood, Secretary-General,
    ASSOCHAM presented the opening remarks and also moderated the session.   Vineet
    Agarwal, Senior Vice President, ASSOCHAM and Chairman of the Logistics Council of
    ASSOCHAM delivered the industry perspective.   Sanjay Rath, Vice President,
    Logistics Centre of Excellence, JSW, and   Anshuman Sinha, Partner, AT Kearney also
    addressed the participants. The session was attended by about 250 members of the
    Industry. 
    </p>
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    Following are highlights of the discussions: 
    </p>
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
      Deepak Sood: 
    </p>
  

    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    &#9679; As India focuses on becoming Atmanirbhar, we would see a revamp of domestic
    ecosystem and better alignment with the global supply chains - both of which
    will be significantly dependent on the robustness of logistics and warehousing.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; The industry would soon move from just a service provider to an end-to-end
  solution provider to their customer. 
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; The implementation of GST, the continued focus on building industrial corridors,
  according infrastructure status to logistics industry including warehousing, thrust
  on manufacturing and the promise of the Indian consumption market, all these
  factors together have enhanced the investment prospects of the country's
  warehouse sector.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; Despite having low cost drivers, highest truck efficiency, and fairly good roads,
the cost of logistics is very high as 13 to 18 per cent of our GDP is spent on
logistics. 
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; There is a need of an efficient multimodal transport system and a collaboration
  among state governments, central Government, and the industry for developing
  infrastructure. Technology-driven changes are needed in this sector. 
</p>
<p style='text-align:justify;'>
    Vineet Agarwal added:
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; Our objective through the National Council on Logistics is how we bring out
  certain changes that are practical in nature. There is a need to look at more
  incremental changes rather than very large interventions for the sector. 
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; The first one is to improve in terms of policy and regulatory issues and the second
  is that how to make the sector more attractive.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; Besides, standardization and design innovation based on India-centric needs
  together with streamlining of processes would reduce time and logistics costs.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; To move on, a body on the lines of RDSO could be set up to ensure that trucks
  and wagons, etc are of the same size. The policies of the Centre and States for
  things like warehousing should be similar in nature.
  

  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; There should be a national policy as going to different states for different
  approvals, regulations and permits not only create inefficiencies but also extra
  cost in the system. 
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; Yet another major area of improvement is the standardization of
containerization of Cargo, which is very poor in our country and needs to be
looked into for bringing cost of containerization.

  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    Pawan Kumar Agarwal said:
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; The national logistics policy will soon be in place and provide a very robust
  framework for action to work on improvements in the logistics and supply chain
  management for the nation.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; We had to devise our own formulations for the national logistics policy and
  therefore it has taken a little longer than what it should have taken, but we have
  reached the finality on this and you will soon see the final logistics policy in
  place. 
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; The logistics sector appears to be very complex and it is loosely defined and what
  logistics encompasses will differ from person to person. 
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; For commodities like Non- Basmati rice exports, the cost in India is about 14 per
cent whereas the same in other countries like Vietnam is just 5-7 per cent. This
shows a big gap in cost competitiveness. 
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; The issue here is that in many sectors we can find a reference point but in the
logistics sector there is no such information, neither can we emulate examples of other counties. Therefore, unless we get down to details and go down to
specific commodities, geographies, modes of transport, concerns, we may just
keep wandering without achieving much. So unless we define it and identify key
areas we cannot go ahead with implementation. This is precisely what the Govt
is doing for over the past 5-6 months.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; There have been seven rounds of discussions on making attempts to zero down
to specific areas of intervention rather than making some very general
statements. There is a focus to create a plan that is implementable.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; Under the plan, the Govt has identified 12 areas that are levers of change that
would focus on - policy coherence, regulatory coherence, and simplification of
processes, use of automation and mechanisation of warehousing, standardization
and unitization of cargo, digital transformation, multi-modality, logistics
infrastructure, professionalization of human resources, green & clean logistics
and others.

  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; Standardisation of Containerisation of cargo holds a lot of potential for bringing
efficiency. This is not very well understood by the people in the logistics
industry. These aspects would be covered in the national logistics policy which
will be announced soon. 
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; There may not be any further action, in many areas, where action has already
been initiated and which are in different stages of implementation.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; The focus is on ensuring that all this happens in a coordinated manner. There
are issues in logistics at the state level and at the local level, which needs due
attention. States will have to understand and bring focus on logistics of which
warehousing is going to be an important issue. This coordination arrangement
needs to be institutionalised to bring in a more robust structure of coordination
at the national level, state level, and between states and the centre.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>&#9679; Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are a very important sector for the
  economy and streamlining of processes will help MSMEs reduce logistics costs to
  a great extent.</p>
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>&#9679; ASSOCHAM may hold master classes for stakeholders and professionals in the
  industry at different levels with a focus on creating efficiencies at large</p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>  Sanjay Rath added the following:</p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; From a consumer perspective, it was mentioned that the ongoing pandemic has
  changed their whole business environment. The pandemic suddenly stopped the
  complete business operations so much so that there was no manpower available
  to load and unload the Railways containers. </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; The whole supply chain was disrupted, leading to the closing down of the
production units. Since the industry is manpower intensive, there is a need to
have a mechanised kind of system. 
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; To re-start the production, certain innovations were done for transportation
including designing of coastal wagons.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; Multimodal transportation and the use of coastal line can reduce the cost. One
of the major reasons of the high logistics cost in India is due to non - use of
coastal lines.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; Further, a very old documentation process is being followed in India which needs
review along with necessary modifications in regulations for enabling coastal
cargo. 
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; The Steel industry is highly logistics-intensive and logistics cost for the metal
industry in India is as high as 20-25 per cent of the total cost of production.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; To reduce such a high cost, innovations in logistics cargo, digital transformation,
and scaling up the whole ecosystem of the supply chain like China is needed. 
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    Anshuman Sinha said the following:
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; India ranked 44thon World Bank's Logistics Performance Index in 2018 and India's
logistics cost ranges in 13-14% of GDP as compared to 8-9% in developed
economies, which is Indicating inherent inefficiency in the way freight moves in
our county. 
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; There is potential to unlock USD 250 billion capital from supply chains by 5 per
cent reduction in logistics cost. This would require an integrated development
of the logistics sector leveraging the best in class technology, integrated
processes, and skilled manpower.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; The proposed National Logistics Policy lays down well-defined objectives to
achieve the vision of transforming the Indian logistics sector. The strategic
initiatives of the policy include integrated logistics services, multi-modal
logistics infrastructure, logistics needs of the core sectors and logistics for
international competitiveness and logistics for emergencies. 
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; It is expected that these initiatives will achieve improved cost and time
efficiency of specific commodity supply chains, synergetic growth and
transformation of all transport and allied sectors and optimized multi modal mix,
increase predictability of delivery and reduced well time, reduced losses on
account of transport and storage, enhanced business competitiveness of the
manufacturing sector, and Improve logistics employment opportunities in
quantity and quality.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679; There are identified additional ideas to strengthen the proposed National
Logistics Policy. These include integrated logistics services, Multi-modal logistics
infrastructure, Meeting logistics needs efficiently, and Financing, Monitoring,
and Evaluation.
  </p>
  <p style='text-align:justify;'>
  &#9679;   Sinha, also mentioned key areas of intervention and suggested imperatives,
which he elaborated through the presentation and suggested that the
Government can also focus its efforts along 3 dimensions i.e. complete ownership
initiatives, guidelines defining initiatives and program management initiatives. </p>
<p>**************</p>