Govt completes GIS mapping of 2,000 industrial clusters

The government today said GIS mapping for over 2,000 industrial clusters has been completed under the proposed national master plan and put in public domain this month -- data which will help in better planning of logistics.
Speaking at the 'India Integrated Transport and Logistics Summit' here, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) secretary Ramesh Abhishek said that the process of making a 'National Master Plan for Manufacturing Clusters' is on.
"We noted that many of the manufacturing clusters, whether old industrial estates, parks or economic zones...Are being set up not with particular planning in mind. Now, we have started this exercise of GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping of all the clusters and all the logistics infrastructure that serve these clusters," he said.

Abhishek informed the gathering that more than 2,000 clusters (5 lakh hectare) has already been uploaded on a portal.
"This will be put in public domain this month itself," he said and added it will help in logistics infrastructure planning for industrial projects and parks.
The National Master Plan for Manufacturing Clusters intends to cover the database and GIS mapping of industrial clusters, zones, corridors, areas, and parks developed under various schemes of central and state government.

Speaking at the summit, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Mundra and Hazira ports have been brought under the logistics data bank (LDB) project, which started at JNPT in July last year.

"I find lot of exporters feeling that this is a fantastic data base," she said.
Among other things, the data helps in actual movement of cargo through digitised monitoring.
The LDB project started by Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (DMICDC) intends to bring a drastic change in the way container movement is tracked and its visibility across the supply chain.
Abhishek said more than 2.5 million containers have been provided with RFID tag under the project.
DMICDC and Japanese IT major NEC Corporation have formed a joint venture -'DMICDC Logistics Data Services Ltd' with 50:50 equity participation to establish the LDB service that will handle the tracking and viewing of container movement across all ports to the Inland Container Depots and end-users.

Talking about logistics issues, Food Secretary Preeti Sudan said the government is modernising old warehouses, which in fact are no better than godowns leading to wastage.
She also her ministry is doing a pilot project for storing rice in silos instead of paddy as the government supplies rice under the Food Security Law.