All India Transporters Welfare Association

National President's Message

Logistics Costs Is Critical To Country's Economy No one can claim that the logistics and infrastructure sectors are not the two major key drivers for the Indian economy. However, the scenario was not the same until November 2017 and only the infrastructure sector enjoyed focus from the government of India. The logistics operations were just sailing, taking a backseat. Like the previous governments, the BJP-led government also did not give importance to the transport and logistics sector, initially. But things started to change gradually and the new government started to allocate more annual budget for road infrastructure development. Owing to this, India jumped 19 places in World Bank's Logistics Performance Index (LPI) 2016, to rank 35th amongst 160 countries. However, similar support is not offered for logistics’ taxes and duties, which eventually have resulted in high logistics costs. Business is sinking and trade is happening at a slow pace. Of late, high logistics cost has been a concern to the $215 billion industry. Currently, the logistics cost of India is standing at a whopping 14 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), far more than the US and Europe, which ranges between 8-10 per cent. Or, at least that is presented to the people of the country. But, why the difference is so much? The major difference is the huge pile of tax load on prices of processed crude. If we ignore the government taxes and duties we get a whole new picture of i....