13 firms ink non-disclosure agreement with Centre to use ULIP data

As many as 13 firms, including MapMyIndia, CargoExchange and Yes Bank, have signed a non-disclosure agreement with the government to access data from the Unified Logistics Interface Platform, the commerce and industry ministry said on Saturday.

The Unified Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP) was launched on September 17 as part of the national logistics policy.

The ministry said that 11 more organisations like Instavans and Trucks, Bosch India, Portlinks and Shiprocket are in the process of signing the agreement.

The policy aims to bring ease of doing business in the logistics sector by simplifying the logistics processes, improving its efficiency, bringing in transparency and visibility, and reducing logistics cost and time.

"Till date, 13 organisations - MapMyIndia, CargoExchange, Freight Fox, Conmove, Intugine, Eikonatech, Yes Bank, Superprocure, CargoShakti, CloudStrats, Shyplite, APSEZL, and AITWA have signed Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to access data on ULIP," the ministry said in a statement.

Startups are gearing up to showcase their innovative ideas for creating new solutions for the sector whereas large enterprises are mulling to integrate with ULIP for simplifying complex logistics processes, verifying the documents of vendors as well as to get visibility of cargo movement, it added.

The ULIP platform will enable the industry players to get secure access to information related to logistics and resources available with various ministries.

At present, 30 systems from seven ministries are integrated through more than 100 APIs covering more than 1,600 data fields for usage by the stakeholders.

ULIP has a dedicated portal that makes the process of data requests simpler, faster, and transparent.

A support team is working round the clock to provide support to the industry players for registration on the portal.

After the registration, users need to submit their use cases, which will then be reviewed based on the proposed usage of the requested data and after the successful review, users requesting data will have to sign an NDA.

"With the signing of the NDAs, industry players can develop APIs for integration with ULIP. After the system security check and thorough testing of the integration, the users can fetch authentic data through ULIP from various government sources," as per the statement.

ULIP will give direct and indirect benefits to all logistics stakeholders like verification of drivers and vehicles details in a single click, tracking and tracing of consignment, route optimisation planning, a timely update on the destination of the consignment, reduce paper works, empty carrier and container visibility, and inventory management.

By reducing regulatory, documentary and other delays, ULIP will enable structured planning by helping in decision making on optimum use of modes of logistics thereby saving cost and time, the ministry said.

With the democratisation of the information, ULIP aims to enable the industry players for creating a market for revenue generation as well as the abolition of monopoly and un-levelled advantage, it said.