Why in news? India has improved its ranking on the World Bank’s Logistic Performance Index (LPI) 2023 by jumping to 38th position from 44th place among 139 countries in terms of investment in technology and logistic infrastructure.

Highlights:

• India’s LPI was 54 in 2014 which improved to 44 in 2018.
• This ranking has improved after significant investments made in both soft and hard infrastructure as well as technology across the country.

Measures taken to improve the logistics:

• India jumped to 38th position in 2023 after the government announced the ambitious PM Gati Shakti project as the National Master Plan for multimodal connectivity in October 202
• The National Logistic Policy was launched last year to ensure quick last-mile delivery, end transport-related challenges, save time and money of the manufacturing in the logistics sector.
• Investment in hard infrastructureg., trade-related infrastructure; reduction of delays in cargo tracking and dwell times, etc.,
• Investment in Technology: Digitalisation; implementation of supply chain visibility platforms

What does the report say?

• According to the World Bank’s LPI report, India’s rank moved up five places in infrastructure score from 52nd in 2018 to 47th in 2023.
• The ranking climbed to 22nd spot on international shipments in 2023 from 44th in 2018 and moved four places up to 48th in logistics competence.
• The report has cited modernisation and digitalisation as a reason for emerging economies like India to leapfrog advanced countries and the technology has been a critical component of this effort, with implementation under a public-private partnership of a supply chain visibility platform that contributed to remarkable reductions of delays.
• According to the report, the average dwell time for containers between May and October 2022 was three days for India and Singapore, much better than some of the industrialised countries whereas the dwell time for the US was seven days and for Germany it was 10 days.
• It stated that with the introduction of cargo tracking, dwell time in the eastern port of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh fell from 32.4 days in 2015 to 5.3 days in 2019.

About Logistics Performance Index (LPI):

• It is released by World Bank.
• It is an interactive benchmarking tool created to help countries identify the challenges and opportunities they face in their performance on trade logistics and what they can do to improve their performance.
• It measures the ease of establishing reliable supply chain connections and structural factors that make it possible, such as the quality of logistics services, trade and transport-related infrastructure, as well as border controls.
• It comes out every two years (from 2010 to 2018); however, after the COVID-19 break, the report has been released now in 2023