From PM GatiShakti to ITLA: discuss the evolution of India's institutional architecture for multi-modal logistics planning.

India has long planned roads, railways, ports and airways in separate ministry silos. As a result, assets were poorly connected and logistics costs stayed high. Since 2021, the government has built the system up in three layers: a shared digital plan, a policy with targets, and now a permanent apex planner.

Stage 1: PM GatiShakti (2021), a shared digital map

• Launched on 13 October 2021 as a GIS platform built by BISAG-N, with Central Ministries and States/UTs onboarded [1].
• Combines seven engines: roads, railways, airports, ports, mass transport, waterways and logistics infrastructure [2].
• Its institutions are the Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) and the Network Planning Group (NPG) [1]. The NPG has evaluated 352 projects worth ₹16.10 lakh crore [3].

Stage 2: National Logistics Policy (2022), targets and soft infrastructure

• Launched on 17 September 2022. It aims for logistics costs comparable to global benchmarks and a top-25 LPI rank by 2030 [4].
• India rose to 38th of 139 countries in LPI 2023 [5]. An NCAER study for DPIIT estimated logistics cost at about 7.97% of GDP [6].
• LEADS rankings push States to compete on logistics performance [7].

Stage 3: ITLA (2026), a permanent apex planner

• Approved by the Cabinet as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), the national apex body for transport planning [8].
• Prepares a National Transport Master Plan (10 years or more) and checks Ministries' 5-year and annual plans against it [8].
• Does technical appraisal and monitoring of projects costing ₹500 crore or more, plus post-implementation impact assessment [8].
• Runs the National Transport Data Repository, which combines e-way bill, FASTag, Vahan and GPS data [8].

Gaps that remain

• Overlap: the NPG, ITLA and financial appraisal may all review the same project, and their roles are not yet divided [3][8].
• Limited powers: an SPV without a statute cannot bind Ministries [8].
• Execution: 848 of 1,820 central projects were delayed, by about 36.6 months on average. The main causes were land, clearances and funding, which ITLA does not control [9].
• Federal and data gaps: States' data layers on the platform are still uneven [3].

The system has moved from mapping (GatiShakti) to targets (NLP) to planning with accountability (ITLA). The next steps should be to:

• clearly divide work between ITLA and the NPG;
• publish ITLA's appraisal findings;
• give ITLA a law once it has proven itself;
• work more closely with States.

Together, these can give India cheaper, greener logistics for Viksit Bharat 2047 and SDG 9.