National Highway Corridor (Sector) I Project

Seamless transport across state boundaries is lacking. The east–west national highway corridor was improved significantly between Chittorgarh and Kanpur, and travel time was reduced. For example, the travel time from Shivpuri to Jhansi (100 km) decreased by 1 hour. However, trucks carrying goods must spend 1.5 hours at state border checkpoints to get tax and customs clearances to cross. The World Bank’s Logistic Performance Index, which ranks 160 countries every 2 years, ranked India 25th in 2016, up from 54th in 2014. Logistics performance in India is improving, but for the timeliness component of the index India was ranked 42nd in 2016. Although hard infrastructure for logistics has been improving, soft logistic infrastructure still lags. In the same way, long-distance bus services across state borders have not been well developed. Requirements for getting operating permits in each state are a constraint on expanding the long-distance bus service network. To use the road corridor infrastructure more effectively, measures such as harmonization across states of both regulations and taxes and charges and swift clearance at border checkpoints need to be introduced. The government planned to introduce a nationwide goods and service tax in July 2017 by combining federal- and state-level taxes. The introduction of the new tax will significantly reduce the time spent at state border checkpoints.