Progressing Bharatmala and Sagarmala projects
Forty-four Economic Corridors and 24 Multi Modal Logistics Parks are being planned on the hub and spoke model to facilitate efficient movement of freight along routes of economic importance, Minister Nitin Gadkari has said.
The Minister of Road Transport & Highways said the Multi Modal Logistics Parks are being planned as centres of freight aggregation with warehousing, cold storage and other such facilities.
These parks, as part of the national flagship programme Bharatmala, will be built on National Highways outside cities, so they will help reduce traffic congestion and also reduce pollution.
Work has already begun for setting up Logistics Parks at Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Vijaywada, Surat and Guwahati.
The Economic Corridors and Multi Modal Logistics Parks will facilitate faster movement of farm produce to food processing centres and to markets.
This will raise the income of farmers, give a boost to the food processing industry and create a large number of jobs, he told delegates at a session on “Opportunity in Infrastructure, Logistics Technology and Equipment” at the World Food India 2017 conference in New Delhi 4 Nov 2017.
Sagarmala Programme of the Shipping Ministry will also be contributing to the growth of the country’s food economy in a big way, he said.
Fourteen Coastal Economic Zones have been planned under this programme. Two mega food processing parks are being planned at Kakinada and Satara and a cost of Rs.140 Crores.
Facility for processing, grading and packaging of fish will be developed at Paradeep Port.
In addition to this, 111 waterways are being developed as National Waterways with rivers Ganga, Brahmaputra and Barak being already under development, said Gadkari.
Water transport will reduce logistics costs, which in turn will benefit the food processing industry.
The development of rivers Ganga and Brahmaputra for transport will also make it easier to ship Indian produce to Bangladesh.
Dry ports are being developed at Jalna, Vidarbha and Nasik to begin with. The availability of ports will give a boost to movement of goods, he said. fii-news.com
