NEW DELHI, INDIA (Smart Cities News): With the fast-growing urbanisation requirements of rapid economic growth, including e-marketing and associated first and last-mile freight movements, increasing noise in various cities affected public health and the local environment. Therefore, the logistics division under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has decided to work in a planned manner to improve the city freight movement.
In the Minister of Commerce and Industry meeting, Shri Hardeep Singh Puri launched the website on “Freight Smart Cities” and released a handbook outlining 14 measures that can be taken to improve urban freight. He appreciated the extensive participation of nearly 300 stakeholders.
“I urge the state governments to identify ten cities to be developed as Freight Smart Cities and set up institutional mechanisms for the same involving the government and private stakeholders. The States government have to focus on the quick wins like developing peri-urban freight regions, night-time deliveries, transportation system and promoting electrification of urban freight etc.”., said Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, MOHUA.
Under the Freight Smart Cities initiative, city-level logistics committees will be formed. These committees would have related government departments and agencies at the local level. It also includes the private sector from the logistics services. Committees will observe and create city logistics plans to implement performance improvement measures locally.
The logistics division is working closely with Germany under Indo- German development cooperation and RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute) on the freight smart city initiatives. Now the challenge is to influence the states to adopt and participate in this initiative.