How far can a unified ministry — an idea reportedly being conceived by the Modi Government’s think tank — cure the ills of the transport sector? To a great extent, says a section of stakeholders and analysts.

They believe that a single power centre could help speed up the efforts towards creating an “integrated transport system” which will ensure faster movement of goods and passengers.

Today, the four modes of transport in the country — road, rail, aviation and shipping — are under four different ministries and their focus is confined to the respective sectors.

As a result, the efforts to link them together to enable seamless flow of cargo are fraught with innumerable problems, they point out.

Great potential ‘It will be a master stroke by the Modi Government,” said Sailesh Bhatia, President of the Association of Multimodal Transport Operators of India. “We should ideally have a Ministry of Logistics,” he added.

Co-ordination among ministries and departments is one of the major issues affecting growth in the sector. “We are hardly using coastal shipping and inland waterways for transporting export and import cargo. There is great potential to reduce the logistics costs if this mode is adequately linked with road and rail and a unified ministry could greatly facilitate this,” he said.

Multimodal operators are those who take responsibility of moving goods from one point to another via more than one mode of transport under a single document. In India, they are governed by the Multimodal Transport of Goods Act of 1993. However, aviation is not covered by this Act. Multimodal transport system offers door-to-door delivery of goods. Currently, in India, they handle only export-import cargo.

Nripesh Kumar, head of capital projects and infrastructure, PWC India, said the move to merge some of the ministries appears to be aimed at trimming the top-level bureaucracy and improve the governance. Under a unified ministry, decision making will be faster.

This would speed up implementation of projects and eventually bring in more efficiency in the logistics sector. An integrated transport policy can also prevent the kind of problems that are being faced by the road and highways sector now, he said. Besides trimming bureaucracy, a single window approach could ensure speedy resolution of disputes and settling contentious issues concerning separate ministries, pointed out Vivek Kele, a leading multimodal transport operator. The development of an integrated transport system will also lead to increased containerisation of cargo, bringing economy and safety in carrying goods, he added.

N Siva Subramaniam, a Chennai based air-cargo agent believes that the move to have a single ministry could certainly help improve infrastructure facilities at airports and sea ports. Lack of proper hinterland connectivity and the procedural delay in cargo clearance at airports and seaports are the major bane of our export-import trade.

May be unwieldy However, not everyone thinks on these line. A unified ministry could be so unwieldy and that a single minister may not be able to pay enough attention to crucial matters. This could delay decision making, said another air-cargo agent based in Mumbai, who would not liked to be named.

Sarvesh Shahi of SKS Logistics, a coastal ship operator, said unification of ministries alone is not enough. The most important thing is the ability, interest and dedication of the minister in charge and the secretaries handling the portfolio, to learn and understand the issues and come up with faster solutions.

Take the case of coastal shipping. The Government has been talking about the importance of developing this most economical and eco-friendly mode of transport for years. But there has been hardly any action to facilitate it, he said.

Interestingly, it was during the previous BJP government in 2000 that the then Surface Transport Ministry was bifurcated to Shipping Ministry and Road and Highways Ministry.

Series of meetings

The Modi effect appears to be trickling down. On Sunday, Mumbai Port Chairman RM Parmar hurriedly called a meeting to discuss the issues hurting the development of coastal shipping.

Apparently, the chairman will have to make a presentation on coastal shipping to the Shipping Secretary in New Delhi on Monday.

This would be followed by a detailed presentation by the Shipping Secretary to the PMO on Tuesday, said one of the participants at the meeting.

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