Making freight traffic in India more climate friendly

Project description

Title: Climate friendly freight traffic in India (Green Freight)
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU)
Country: India
Lead executing agency: Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI)
Overall term: 2019 to 2022

Context

According to recent projections, freight transport in India will reach 3.450 billion tonne-kilometres (btkm) by 2030 from 1.325 btkm in 2007 – an increase of 250 per cent.

Making the sector more efficient and climate friendly would facilitate a 10 percent reduction in logistical costs, leading to a growth of 5 to 8 percent in exports. Another challenge of the logistics industry in India is the fact that it is highly fragmented. Logistics costs in India are pegged at 13 to 14 percent of the gross domestic product and are higher than those in developed countries. The Indian Government aims to reduce these costs to 10 percent by 2022. To address these issues, the Ministry of Commerce and transport industry representatives are currently preparing the national integrated Logistics Action Plan.

The Green Freight (GF) project supports the Ministry of Commerce in implementing the national integrated Logistics Action Plan in a selected corridor as a pilot project.

Objective

National and state-level partners receive support in making the Indian freight and logistics sector more climate-friendly and efficient. They contribute to implementing the Indian Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

Approach

The project advises the Ministry of Commerce in setting up coordination and monitoring mechanisms for the national Logistics Action Plan. Moreover, selected national authorities responsible for the freight sector receive support in developing climate-friendly standards and regulations. Measures for improving the logistics management and introducing climate-friendly technologies will be implemented on a selected logistics corridor to create a pilot project. To ensure the sustainable implementation of national strategies, the competences of state level authorities, as well as private logistics companies and truck drivers, will be strengthened. At the same time, the partners at national and state level will receive support in setting up monitoring systems for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.