In order to make the Make in India' initiative a great success, Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari has said that the government is committed to bring down logistics cost to 12 per cent from 18 per cent at present and raise the share of waterways transportation to 15 per cent in the next five years,
At present, barely 3.5 per cent of the goods transportation in India takes through this route. The minister further stated that the government is making efforts in this direction as goods transportation through water costs barely 20 paise per km in comparison to Rs 1.5 a km through road and Re 1 per km through railways
Urging logistic companies to shift from roads to water transportation and buy ships, the Minister has said that massive work is underway on a waterway which is the government's top priority where work on 10 waterways was scheduled to begin before December and tenders have already been received to develop two waterways to export iron ore from Goa and added that there are plans to develop 2,000 water ports.