LEADS 2022 Survey Report: Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal recently launched Logistics Ease Across Different States (LEADS) 2022 survey report.

Key Points:

• The LEADS is an indigenous data-driven index to assess logistics infrastructure, services, and human resources across all 36 States and UTs.
• The index is an indicator of the efficiency of logistical services necessary for promoting exports and economic growth.
• The LEADS serves as a feedback mechanism on the current logistical capacities and generates recommendations for further improvement by interacting with various end-user stakeholders.
• It then further uses the feedback evaluation to classify states on the scale of logistics ease currently present among them.
• The LEADS 2022 has garnered more than 6500 responses from more than 2100 respondents across the country.
• Unlike the previous versions of LEADS which were based on ranking systems for all states, LEADS 2022 has adopted a classification-based grading, states have been now classified under four categories viz coastal states, hinterland/landlocked states, north-eastern states, and Union Territories.
• For the assessment of how well a State or UT has performed in comparison to the Top State/UT within the specific cluster.

Three performance categories namely,

1. Achievers: States/UTs achieving 90% or more percentage,
2. Fast Movers: States/UTs achieving percentage scores between 80% to 90%, and
3. Aspirers: States/UTs achieving percentage scores below 80% have been made.

• Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat are among the 15 States and UTs categorised as achievers in the logistics index chart 2022, according to a report released by the commerce and Industry Ministry on October 13, 2022.
• Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, SikkimRajasthan, Puducherry,  and Tripura are the other States categorised as fast movers in the ranking.
• The 15 States and UTs ranked in the aspirers category include Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Goa, Mizoram, Ladakh, Nagaland, Jammu and Kashmir, and Arunachal Pradesh.
• The other States and UTs which are in the achievers category include Chandigarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

• The LEADS 2022 survey report would assist PM GatiShakti National Master Plan (PMGS-NMP) and National Logistics Policy (NLP) to perform a network mapping of logistics infrastructure, services, and regulatory environment.
• This in turn will enable the State Governments to identify and fill the gaps and achieve data-driven multimodal connectivity.