In a recent development, the Ministry of Commerce recently announced its plans to unveil freight smart cities which will improve urban freight efficiency besides creating an opportunity for logistics cost reduction. This initiative will further form city-level logistics committees which in turn will have related government departments and agencies at the local and state government levels.

In a statement issued by the ministry, it stated that these would also include the private sector from the logistics services and also users of logistics services. "The logistic division is working closely with GIX (Germany) and Indo-German Development Cooperation, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and RMI India, in order to lay down India's best freight smart cities", the press statement from the Ministry of Commerce reads.

Competition is expected to be announced to encourage the participation of cities in this initiative," it said. while 10 cities  are to be identified on immediate basis, it is also planned to expand the list to 75 cities in the next phase before scaling up throughout the country, including all state capitals and cities that have more than one million population.

As a matter of fact, Minister of Commerce and Industry Hardeep Singh Puri launched a portal on 'Freight Smart Cities' and released a handbook outlining 14 guideline initiatives that can be adopted for Freight Smart Cities. The Minister in his statement urged the states to identify 10 cities, to begin with, which can be developed as freight smart cities and also to set up institutional mechanisms for the same involving the government as well as private stakeholders like logistics services providers, users and citizens.

"The 14 measures presented in the handbook represent high-leverage areas for cities to improve their economic competitiveness and reduce congestion and pollution," said Pawan Agarwal, special secretary at logistics division.