Transport and communication as lifelines; modes compared; integrated planning

Detail

Why transport and communication are "lifelines"

• Goods and services do not move by themselves. Someone must carry them from the place where they are made to the place where they are used.
• Trade, transport and communication support each other:
• Trade means buying and selling goods and services.
• Transport moves the people and the goods.
• Communication moves messages, orders and payments, through post, telephone, internet and media.

• Without transport there is no trade. Without communication, trade cannot be organised.

• A dense, efficient network is needed for trade at every scale:

• Local: village to market town.
• National: surplus states supply deficit states. For example, wheat moves from Punjab to other states, and coal from Jharkhand and Odisha reaches power plants all over India.

• Global: ports link India to world trade.

• Lifeline: something an economy cannot live without. The idea is that transport and communication work like the arteries and nerves of a body. If they are cut, production, trade and services stop.

• Effects of a good network:
• Better roads and rail → lower cost of moving goods → wider markets for farmers and factories → more jobs and faster growth.
• Better links also join distant regions (the North-East, islands, hill states) to the national economy. This strengthens national unity.

How India's network grew: key milestones

Year	Milestone	Why it matters
1853	First railway, Bombay (Mumbai) to Thane, about 34 km	Start of modern land transport in India
1999	Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) launched under the National Highways Development Project	4- and 6-lane highways joining Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata
2015–17	Sagarmala (port-led development) and Bharatmala Pariyojana (highway corridors)	Ports, roads and logistics parks planned as linked systems
2021	PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan	All modes planned together on one digital map
2022	National Logistics Policy	Aim: lower logistics costs across all modes

Modes of transport by domain

• Land: roads, railways, pipelines, ropeways.

• Ropeway: a cable line that carries cabins or cargo buckets over steep slopes. It is used in hilly and mining areas.

• Water:

• Inland waterways: rivers, canals, backwaters and creeks.

• Oceanic: coastal shipping and overseas shipping.

• Air: domestic and international flights, including helicopter services.

Which mode is best for which job

Mode	Best job	Strength	Weakness
Roads	Short haul, door-to-door service	Flexible. Reach villages and hilly areas. Feed traffic to rail, ports and airports	Costly per tonne over long distances. Congestion and pollution
Rail	Bulk cargo (coal, ore, cement, foodgrains) over long distance	Cheap per tonne-km. Energy-efficient. Carries many passengers	Fixed routes. Needs road links at both ends
Pipelines	Liquids, gas and slurry (a mix of fine solid and water, e.g. iron-ore slurry)	Steady flow. Little transit loss. Low running cost	High first cost. Carries only one kind of product
Water	Heavy, bulky, low-value cargo	Cheapest and most fuel-efficient mode	Slow. Depends on river depth and season
Air	Speed, difficult terrain (North-East, Himalaya, islands)	Fastest. Crosses mountains, forests and seas	Most expensive. Uses a lot of fuel

• Tonne-km: one tonne of cargo moved one kilometre. It is the standard unit for comparing freight work across modes.
• Short haul vs long haul:
• For short trips, trucks are cheaper, because they need no loading and unloading at stations or ports.
• For long trips, rail and water become cheaper, because their cost per kilometre is low.

India's modal imbalance

• Modal imbalance: too much traffic moves by one mode while cheaper modes stay under-used.
• Road dominance:
• Roads carry about 85% of passengers and 70% of freight (NCERT).

• The share of road freight is still about 71%, and rail's share is about 18% (2024-25 figures) [6].

• Rail's share has fallen:

• Trucks offer door-to-door delivery and flexible timing.
• Rail lines are crowded because passenger and goods trains share the same tracks.

• Result: more freight has moved to roads, even though roads cost more and pollute more.

• Inland waterways are under-used:

• Their share was about 1% (NCERT). It is now about 2% [7].
• Cargo on National Waterways reached a record 145.5 million tonnes in 2024-25 [7].

• Target: raise the share to 5% and the cargo to over 200 million tonnes under Maritime India Vision 2030, and to over 500 million tonnes by 2047 under the Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision [7].

• Results of the imbalance:

• Too much freight on roads → higher fuel use and emissions → higher logistics costs → Indian goods are less competitive abroad.

Logistics cost

• Logistics cost: the total cost of moving and storing goods. It includes transport, warehousing, inventory (stock kept in store), packaging and paperwork.
• Older estimate: about 13-14% of GDP. This figure came from outside studies and partial data [4].
• New estimate:
• A study by NCAER for DPIIT (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade) puts logistics cost at 7.97% of GDP and 9.09% of non-services output for 2023-24 [4].
• Non-services output: the output of agriculture, mining and industry, which are the sectors that actually ship goods.

• The study used data from more than 3,500 industry stakeholders, along with data from MoSPI, RBI and GSTN [4].

• Policy target:

• Earlier, the government said Gati Shakti could bring the cost down to 7-8% of GDP, among the lowest in the world [11].
• India aims to join the top 25 countries in logistics performance by 2030 [5].

Integrated planning: PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan

• Launch: 13 October 2021, as a national master plan for infrastructure [2].
• What it is:
• A GIS platform. GIS (Geographic Information System) is computer mapping in which many layers of data are placed on one map of the same place.
• It was built by BISAG-N (Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics), based in Gandhinagar, Gujarat [2].

• The layers include administrative boundaries, economic zones, and infrastructure and utilities [2].

• Who is on it:

• At launch it brought 16 ministries together, including Railways and Road Transport [2].

• By October 2024, 44 central ministries and 36 States/UTs had joined, and 1,614 data layers had been added [3].

• How it works:

• Each ministry puts its projects on the shared map.
• Planners can see roads, railways, ports, airports, waterways, pipelines and logistics in one place.
• Clashes and missing links show up early. For example, a highway can be planned with a rail siding or a port road beside it.

• Result: fewer delays and repeated digging, and smoother links between modes.

• Why it is needed: in the past, each department planned separately. A road might be built and then dug up again for a pipeline, and ports often lacked rail links.

National Logistics Policy (2022) and multimodal logistics parks

• National Logistics Policy (NLP): launched by the Prime Minister on 17 September 2022 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi [8].
• Goal: make the whole logistics system more efficient. Gati Shakti handles the planning of physical infrastructure, and NLP handles the processes, digital systems and rules [8].
• ULIP (Unified Logistics Interface Platform): a single digital portal that shows where goods are in real time. It joins data from many ministries [8].
• Multimodal Logistics Park (MMLP):
• A large freight hub where road, rail, and sometimes waterways and air meet.
• It has warehouses, container yards and customs facilities.

• Goods can switch from one mode to another at one place.

• Plan for MMLPs:

• 35 MMLPs are planned under Bharatmala Pariyojana [9].

• Together they will handle about 700 million tonnes of cargo once working [9].

• Jogighopa, Assam: India's first International MMLP, on the Brahmaputra (National Waterway-2) [10].

• It links road, rail and waterway cargo with Bangladesh and Bhutan.

Prelims Hooks

• India's first railway (1853) ran between Bombay (Mumbai) and Thane.
• The Golden Quadrilateral joins Delhi–Mumbai–Chennai–Kolkata. The North-South and East-West corridors are a separate part of the same highway project.
• The cheapest and most fuel-efficient mode is water transport. The costliest is air.
• Pipelines can carry slurry, a mix of fine solid and water (e.g. iron ore). They are not limited to oil and gas.
• Freight modal share (2024-25): road ~71% > rail ~18% > inland waterways ~2% [6][7].
• National Waterways cargo in 2024-25: 145.5 million tonnes, a record [7].
• Logistics cost: 7.97% of GDP (2023-24) in the NCAER–DPIIT study, not the older 13-14% [4].
• The Gati Shakti GIS platform was built by BISAG-N, not ISRO or NRSC. It was launched in October 2021 [2].
• National Logistics Policy: 17 September 2022. Its digital tool is ULIP [8].
• Jogighopa (Assam) is India's first International Multimodal Logistics Park [10].

Mains Points

• Causes of modal imbalance:
• Trucks are flexible and give door-to-door service.
• Rail lines are crowded, with passenger and goods trains on shared tracks.
• River depth changes with the season, and river terminals are few.
• Links between modes at the first and last mile are poor.

• Effects: high fuel import bills, high emissions, road congestion and weaker export competitiveness.

• Policy response, plan and process together:

• Gati Shakti (GIS-based joint planning across 44 ministries and 36 States/UTs) [3].
• NLP 2022 (ULIP and common cost measurement) [8].
• Bharatmala MMLPs and Sagarmala ports.
• Dedicated Freight Corridors to move freight back to rail.

• Jal Marg Vikas to raise the waterways share to 5% by 2030 [7].

• Regional angle:

• The North-East, Himalayan states and islands depend on roads and air.

• Multimodal hubs such as Jogighopa on the Brahmaputra, together with transit routes through Bangladesh, can reduce their isolation [10].

• Evaluation:

• The revised logistics cost of 7.97% of GDP (2023-24) shows that planning is now driven by data [4].
• But rail's ~18% share of freight shows that moving cargo from roads to cheaper modes is still the main unfinished task [6].