New Delhi, Oct. 7 -- The Union cabinet on Tuesday approved the setting up of an Integrated Transport and Logistics Authority (ITLA), which will prepare long-term transport plans, technically appraise major projects and bring together data from different transport systems to move towards a unified planning framework across roads, railways, ports, aviation, waterways and urban mobility. "The requirement of logistics is increasing. Practically, if GDP grows by 7%, the logistics requirement grows by 10%," Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said while addressing reporters after the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Vaishnaw said the authority was being created to ensure infrastructure planning keeps pace with changing requirements. "Today, if we are planning, we have to see what will be the requirement 10 years from now - what will be the requirement of roads, what will be the requirement of airports, what will be the requirement of seaports. All these things have to be studied together," he said. ITLA will prepare a comprehensive 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 and urban mobility. It will also evaluate short-term sectoral plans of about five years and annual plans of transport ministries against the longer-term national master plan....