One of the first questions that he put to his team was whether bureaucrats knew how a sewing machine was procured by rural women. A key reform he brought in was to launch a large-scale cattle inoculation campaign that actually took cattle care to the doorstep of rural farmers, enhancing the lives and incomes of their livestock. It was October 2001, and Narendra Modi had just been sworn in as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
Today, several public spaces like bus stands or train stations have a shop dedicated to the ODOP scheme. It supports artisans, farmers and MSMEs. It focuses on improving branding, packaging and quality. Provide market and e-commerce access. Develop district-level export clusters. Generate employment outside major cities. These steps include agriculture, textiles, food processing, handicrafts and minerals. Setting Logistics Right – The Actual Lifeline Logistics and Transportation constitute the bedrock of any business. The Railways constitute the lifeline of the Indian population. The administration seems to have paid attention to setting its track record right over there first. The efficiency of any transport network is measured by its throughput – how many passenger or freight trains can a stretch of track handle in a given period of time. Doubling and electrification enhance speed, thus increasing transformation. Multiple gauges have been avoided. In several cases, doubling has been coupled along with electrification. Distances Never The Same It has been the speeding of several trains that make commute faster. This has meant faster trains. The Vande Bharat trains have also meant that large mobile populations have moved from the roads or airlines to railways going forward. Some of the most popular Vande Bharat trains have been operational in the south, providing valuable connectivity between key metros such as Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Ahmedabad, where the trains have almost obviated the need for expensive flight travel, in addition to catering to high-density routes such as Chennai, Tirunelveli, Kochi, Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangaluru. A same-day return business travel is now possible between Thiruvananthapuram and Calicut, and Chennai and Madurai, something not thinkable in the pre-Vande Bharat era. The sheer capacity available between Delhi and Varanasi has highly reduced the advance booking period for tickets between these two cities.
It is the very foundation of governance that defines his 25-year regime. Livelihood and Logistics as the basic foundation of a turbo-charged economy – These are the key drivers of 25 years of evolution: ODOP – A Low-Cost Employment Multiplier The One District One Product (ODOP) scheme identifies products with local competitive advantage. The Railways have undergone an incredible transformation program leading to a near 100 per cent electrification of Indian Railways. In 2014, about a third of the Indian Railways network was electrified. Today, by 2026, close to 99 per cent of the network is electrified. Between 2004 and 2014, the pace of electrification was about 1.42 kms/day. From 2014 onwards, the pace of electrification has touched a peak of 19.6 km/day in 2022-23, leading to a near total electrification today. Railways significantly increased the length of high-speed-capable tracks, with over 80 per cent of the national network now supporting speeds of 110 km/h and above compared to about 40 per cent in 2014. For example, a poor man’s Rajdhani — The Sampark Kranti — covers the distance between Mumbai and Delhi, with second-class sleeper coaches, in less than 17 hours. Getting External Logistics Right – A Speedy Drive To The Globe As of September 2026, the government announced the completion of the entire 2,843-km Eastern and Western DFC network. A silent re-orientation of the economy from its very inner annals has been at the core of the 25 years of the public life of PM Modi. Like the proverbial tree is known by its fruits, the future shall bear testimony to the foundational 25 years of governance of PM Modi. (The author is a renowned psephologist) Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
Very clearly, this highlighted his learnings from his earlier days as a Sangh Pracharak – how difficult it is to sustain and create a livelihood. Earlier a privilege held only by the Rajdhani passengers.
The Digital Visibility systems implemented in India are similar to the ones implemented in the United States. The DPDP scheme represents two components – DPD – a movement from port terminal directly to the importer and DPE – exporters moving factory-stuffed containers directly to the port terminal. The objective is to bypass unnecessary CFS (Container Freight Station) movement and reduce handling and lift-on/lift-off charges, storage, dwell time, truck movements, Inventory Carrying Costs and Congestion around ports. With this, ports have seen a vast improvement in cargo handling capacities and dwell times. Over the past decade, cargo handling times have improved. Container dwell times have improved significantly. Synchronous – A Responsive Nervous System For The Government
The National Logistics Policy, launched in September 2022, was intended to achieve the following: bring logistics costs to global benchmarks and into single digits and reduce cargo dwell time and improve supply-chain predictability. ULIP (Unified Logistics Information Platform) connects 44 systems belonging to 11 ministries. It offers more than 2,000 data fields through 136 APIs. More than 1,700 companies have registered. Private companies have developed more than 200 applications. The system had processed over 200 crore API transactions by the end of 2025. Logistics Data Bank now provides visibility over container movement at 18 ports, 31 terminals and approximately 5,800 railway stations. Inland waterway tonnage has exceeded the 2030 target. Indian ports have significantly improved their operational efficiency, with average vessel turnaround times dropping from 96 hours to under 49 hours over the past decade. They have dropped to under 3 days, outperforming major logistics hubs like the US (7 days) and Germany (10 days).
Gati Shakti is essentially an infrastructure-planning platform. It was expected to make ministries plan projects jointly. Prevent situations where a port is completed without a rail line or a logistics park without highway access. Use GIS data to identify missing links. Reduce land-acquisition, approval and project-execution delays. Avoid duplication of infrastructure. Improve first- and last-mile connectivity. Dedicated Freight Corridors – Unblocked Arteries What it was expected to achieve: Separate freight trains from passenger services. Permit longer, heavier and faster freight trains. Enable double-stack container movement on the Western DFC. Improve rail reliability and transit time. Shift long-haul cargo from road to rail. Reduce fuel consumption, congestion and emissions. Release capacity for passenger trains on existing railway lines.
By August 2026, 58 ministries and departments were integrated. More than 3,291 data layers were made available. 396 projects worth approximately Rs 18.66 lakh crore had been evaluated. 256 projects had been sanctioned. 198 were under implementation.
