The commerce ministry will soon approach the Union Cabinet to seek approval for the proposed Multimodal Transportation of Goods Bill 2018 which seeks to facilitate smooth movement of products for domestic consumption as also foreign trade, according to an official.
Multimodal transportation includes a combination of more than one mode of movement, such as rail, road or sea, for end-to-end delivery of goods.
"The bill aims at facilitating movement of goods for exports, imports and domestic trade also. It would help fix accountability and liabilities for violation of its provisions," an official said.
After getting the Cabinet's approval, the bill will be laid in the parliament for approval. It would repeal the existing MMTG Act 1993.
Realising the importance of logistics sector to promote trade, the government has created a separate department of logistics under a special secretary in the commerce ministry to coordinate with all the concerned ministries and departments on the subject.
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Earlier there was no single department or ministry to look at all the aspects related to logistics covering various modes of shipment such as sea, roads and railways.
The logistics cost of exports is very high, making Indian goods less competitive in global markets.
According to a report, about 14 per cent of the total value of goods goes into the logistics cost while in other major economies it is just 6-8 per cent.
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