480 cos enroll with Centre's digital logistics gateway ULIP

Within six months of its launch, 480 companies have shown interest in the central government’s United Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP), a digital gateway for enabling single point of access for various logistics related datasets from various ministries and departments.

Maruti Suzuki, DHL, Ultratech, TCIL, Jindal Stainless, Tata Steel, BOSCH, Total group etc are among the industry majors who have been onboarded on ULIP to develop Apps that can benefit them and other stakeholders in the ecosystem.

The integration of ULIP with 33 systems of seven different ministries through 106 Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) covering over 1600 fields has been completed, a government official said. ULIP users with API based integration can utilise the data for various activities and services like multi-modal track and trace, people and vehicle authentication, document digitalisation, process automation at yards and gates, etc. This will lead to reduction of overall operational cost of logistics and save time.

The systems that have already been integrated with ULIP include VAHAN (know your vehicle data), SARATHI (driving license and permit details) and FASTAG (electronic toll collection) platforms of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and the Terminal Operating Systems (14 systems of ports), National Logistic Portal-Marine, and two systems of the Inland Waterways Authority of India of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways. Key logistics related databases of the Ministry of Civil Aviation (Air Cargo Community System, Air Cargo Message Exchange System and AAI Air Cargo Logistics and Allied Services), Ministry of Railways (Freight Operations Information System), Ministry of Finance (Customs ICEGATE), Ministry of Commerce and Industry (DGFT IEC system, PM Gatishakti National Master Plan System), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Digilocker systems) and National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (Logistics Data Bank). 

According to the official, companies are using ULIP’s data services to build innovative solutions and Apps to optimize the utilization of technology. “End-to-end supply chain of Ultratech cement requires tens of thousands of carrier vehicles every day across India which are being supplied by third party transporters. By integrating with ULIP, Ultratech can now verify the compliance of all the vehicles and drivers instantly. Intugine, a logistics related technology service provider is using ULIP’s FASTAG API as the tracking tool for road transportation wherever there is no GPS device available. It has also created a planning tool for first mile/last mile movement og all rail bound cargo by utilizing ULIP’s railways cargo tracking API”, the official states.

Of the 480 companies that have registered on the platform so far, 284 use cases of 100 private companies have been verified. Over 76 companies have signed non disclosure agreements with ULIP to gain access to the data sets for development of Apps. More than 30 Apps have been developed by the industry players for providing better services to their end users by leveraging on ULIP’s API integration, the official added.

ULIP, a part of the National Logistics Policy (NLP), was launched in September last year.