According to senior road, transport and highways ministry officials, 6-7 MMLPs will be bid out next fiscal with each entailing private investment upwards of ₹700-1,000 crore.
“Roughly 200 km of critical infrastructure gap projects for port connectivity via road are going to be executed in the fiscal 2023-24,” a senior government official told ET, adding that these are being implemented under the larger vision of lowering India’s logistic costs.
According to the National Logistics Policy launched in September 2022, India aims to reduce the logistics from 13-14% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to a single-digit.
This is being done through improved road and rail connectivity as well as setting up of multi-modal hubs to enable seamless movement of goods and commuters across modes of transport.
In FY23, India aimed to bid out four MMLPs, of these, parks in Chennai and Indore have been awarded till now and the third in Bengaluru is expected by the end March 2023. Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) bagged the Chennai MMLP at an investment of ₹783 crore while GR Infraprojects will develop the Indore MMLP at ₹758 crore.The parks currently being bid out are ranking high in the Logistics Efficiency Enhancement Programme (LEEP) index due to their access to commercial hubs.Under the PM Gati Shakti Master Plan, 100 critical infrastructure gap projects have been prioritised for development in FY 2023-24 and ₹75,000 crore has been allocated for the same.
These road projects are part of an already identified port connectivity pipeline with 298 projects of roughly ₹2 lakh crore.
According to officials, there are 161 road and 132 rail connectivity projects. Of these, 60 road and 42 railway projects have been identified as critical infrastructure gap projects after three sittings of the empowered group of secretaries headed by cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba in last November.