Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said that the city of Nagpur has the potential of becoming a logistics capital.
The minister made these comments while signing the MoU in Nagpur to set up a multimodal logistics park at Dry port in Sindhi city of Wardha district.
“The city of Nagpur is a place of zero mile and is in the heart of the country. Therefore, the city has the full potential of becoming a logistics capital and the journey towards setting up a multimodal logistics park (MMLP) at Wardha’s Dry port has started,” Gadkari said.
The multimodal logistic park would be connected to the railway and Samruddhi highway, and the Nagpur-Hyderabad National Highway.
“This park would have a facility of cold storage containers which would enable perishable fruits and vegetables to last longer and farm produce and other goods could be exported at affordable logistic cost,” the official statement said.
To improve logistics efficiency and reduce logistics costs in the country, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), led by Gadkari, is developing a multimodal logistics park (MMLP). Logistics costs in India are a higher proportion of the total value of goods than in developed nations. By some estimates, it is as high as 13-14% compared to other developed economies (7– 8%).
In July this year, Gadkari announced that 35 Multimodal Logistics Parks (MMLP) Projects are to be developed under Public-Private Partnership (PPP). 35 MMLPs being implemented by MoRTH will be developed under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in the Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) model.