Minister of Road Transport, Shipping Nitin Gadkari invited players to be a part of the food chain logistics growth by investing in 32 multimodal logistics parks that will come up along the ring roads across the country that government plans to develop.

This will ensure only smaller trucks enter the cities to deliver goods. He said this in a World Food conference here today.

“With implementation of GST and electronic tolling, trucks – with (FASTag) stickers – trucks can ply between Delhi and Mumbai by lowering travel time by a third to 18 hours without having to stop anywhere,” he added. Lower travel time helps prevent food produce from perishing.

India will use its waterways as assets, and is looking to develop a multimodal hub in Sahibganj, linked by road, rail and waterways, that will help move goods to the North East, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Sahibganj is located along the Ganga, linking Allahabad, Varanasi and Haldia.

This will also help move agricultural produce between the Western and Eastern states within India.

Additionally, the Ministry is looking to set up river traffic controllers, with a funding of Rs 5000 crore from the World Bank. Moreover, India will be funding dredging of Brahmaputra in Bangladesh.

India is also looking to increase the capacity of barges by almost three-fourth by design changes, using the same engine. “We are also planning to use diesel using methanol. The prices will be down by almost a third,” he added.

He also said that government is now planning to use pipelines instead of canals to transport water, which will help in saving water.