Cabinet Clears Integrated Transport & Logistics Authority: One Apex Body for a 10-Year National Transport Master Plan

The Union Cabinet on 6 October 2026 approved the creation of the Integrated Transport & Logistics Authority (ITLA), a new apex body that will unify transport planning across road, rail, ports, aviation, waterways and urban mobility. Announced by Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw at the Cabinet briefing, the authority will be set up as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, chaired over by the Union Cabinet under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

ITLA's job is to fix one of infrastructure's oldest problems: fragmented planning. Today, roads, railways, ports, shipping, civil aviation and inland waterways are planned by separate ministries with little coordination. ITLA becomes the national apex institution for integrated transport and logistics planning — handling research, project appraisal, policy support, monitoring and data analytics across modes.

Its centrepiece deliverable is a National Transport Master Plan with a planning horizon of 10 years or more, covering roads, railways, ports and shipping, civil aviation, inland waterways, coastal shipping, urban mobility and logistics. It will also evaluate five-year and annual plans of transport ministries to force alignment, and will technically appraise every Central government infrastructure project costing Rs 500 crore or more — monitoring implementation of such projects and running post-implementation impact assessments.

Vaishnaw framed the economics bluntly: if GDP grows 7%, the logistics requirement grows 10% — and without unified planning, that gap keeps costing the economy. The authority is part of the government's Vision 2047 push to bring down India's logistics costs. It was cleared in the same Cabinet sitting as the Rs 10,000 crore SME Growth Fund.