Cabinet clears ITLA to coordinate transport infrastructure planning across sectors

New Delhi: The Government on Tuesday cleared a proposal to set up an Integrated Transport and Logistics Authority (ITLA), a special purpose vehicle to ensure smoother connections across roads, railways, ports, aviation, waterways, urban mobility, and logistics.

The decision was taken in a meeting of the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Cabinet "approved the setting up of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), namely, ITLA to strengthen research, planning, appraisal, monitoring and impact assessment within the broad domains of transportation and logistics", an official statement said on Tuesday.

The approval seeks to address the long-standing challenges arising from fragmented planning and implementation across multiple transport-related ministries and agencies.

By fostering greater coordination and multi-modal integration, ITLA is expected to enhance the efficiency, sustainability and effectiveness of transport infrastructure development in India, the Commerce and Industry Ministry said.

The authority, to be housed in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), will function as the apex body for integrated transport and logistics planning, research, project appraisal and monitoring, policy support and data analytics, it added.

Its role and responsibilities include preparing a comprehensive National Transport Master Plan with a planning horizon of ten years or more, covering roads, railways, ports and shipping, civil aviation, inland waterways, coastal shipping, urban mobility and logistics.

It will also evaluate short-term sectoral plans (5 years or so) and annual plans of transport ministries to ensure consistency and alignment with the National Transport Master Plan and promote multi-modal infrastructure development.

Besides, ITLA will undertake technical appraisal of government infrastructure projects costing Rs 500 crore or more.

The authority, it said, will monitor implementation of transport and infrastructure projects above Rs 500 crore, provide a coordinated mechanism for issue resolution and undertake post-implementation impact assessment of these projects.

Further, it will build a unified transport data repository by obtaining relevant transport and logistics data sets from multiple sources, including GSTN e-way bill, FASTag, Vahan, GPS-based systems, urban traffic management systems and other relevant databases and carry out data analytics (e.g. Freight Flow) for planning, monitoring and impact assessment.

"The ITLA will build institutional capacity for research, planning, big data integration, project monitoring, and evaluation, while supporting capacity building and adoption of international best practices," it said.

Commenting on the decision, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said its mandate includes research, planning, big data integration, project monitoring and evaluation, capacity building, and adoption of global best practices.

"Expected impact includes greater infrastructure efficiency, lower logistics costs, stronger multimodal connectivity," he said in a social media post.

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