West Bengal needs to explore multimodal international transport linkages to serve its huge consumer base of 30 million. Addressing a plenary session on Strengthening the Multimodal Transportation Infrastructure of the East at the 2nd CII East India Summit, Bengal minister for Industries Commerce and Enterprises Shashi Panja also pointed out that Siliguri in the state’s northern part was also coming up as the gateway to Bhutan and Nepal.
“Siliguri is also coming up in a very big way as a gateway to Nepal and Bhutan. We are looking at a huge consumer base of almost maybe 30 million, the demands are there, and the requirements are there. The connectivity needs to be there too. The international linkages also have to there, the bilateral linkages,” said Panja.
She pointed out that investors look for good governance and assured them the state has political and financial stability.
“We have a robust infrastructure, we have huge internal connectivity achieved through the development of the roads, highways. There is thrust on land-water connectivity,” she said.
She stressed the importance of harnessing the key integrators of multimodal transportation to bring about a change in the transshipment of products and services in the Eastern part of India.
“The growth of the region with the focus on creating a multimodal logistics hub would be principal to enhance the economic development of the nation and for the eastern states in particular, ” the minister said.
The session looked at linking key elements of the national programmes like Gati Shakti, Sagarmala and the National Waterways in the region – and the need to develop associated infrastructural facilities to bind together connectivity for ease of trade and business, including international linkages with friendly neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar.
Vinit Kumar, Chairman, Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, Kolkata, said multimodal brings in additional cost and additional loss of time due to change of transport modes, and so to succeed there is a need for reduced costs and time.
Therefore infrastructure should be up to the mark for changing modes of transport and documentation and paperwork should be smoothly processed.
S.V.K Reddy, Chief Executive Officer, Inland Waterways, Government of Andhra Pradesh said logistics cost needs to be brought down.
Logistics cost in India, according to Reddy, is as high as 11- 12 percent vis a vis 6-7 percent in developed nations.
In the east and northeast, cost reduction is needed as 57 percent of core industries are here and 25 percent of GDP is contributed by the region.
Therefore, all components of logistics costs are critical for production costs which will bring down costs of products. The industry, Reddy said, should ask the government for this, and all the hiccups need to be tackled for schemes like Sagarmala to operate seamlessly and the effect will be felt by the industry.
