Chetak Group has inaugurated its first Green warehouse in Pune. The warehouse, which adds to the over two million warehousing capacity, was inaugurated by Chetak Group’s Directors Mukesh and Rajesh Haritash, in the presence of guests from Tata Motors and other prominent clients. The warehouse will serve all vendors of Tata Motors. Mukesh Haritash, Director, Chetak Logistics said, “We are happy to inaugurate first Green and Happy Warehouse in Pune. This is a result of the inspiration we derived from our father, late Jai Karan Sharma, Founder, Chetak Group. We dedicate the warehouse to him and pledge to take forward his vision of serving the customers with the quality product offerings. The warehouse, measuring one lakh sq. ft., adds to 2 million sq. ft., warehousing space offered by the Chetak Group across India.” The new Green warehouse at Pune offers many firsts such as solar power energy, environmentally friendly last mile delivery, unique facilities for employees, safety measures and smart material handling.

According to Knight Frank India’s latest report, India Warehousing Market Report-2022, Bhubaneswar recorded an exponential surge of 700 per cent taking the warehousing transaction volume to 0.86 million sq. ft.., in FY 2022 from 0.11 million sq. ft., in FY 2021. “Warehousing in Bhubaneswar is clustered around Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Road (NH-16), Tangi, Pitapalli and Chandaka. The demand for warehousing in the city has been picking up gradually in recent years and is widely dominated by local developers. In the last few years, development of industrial and logistics parks around the city has further boosted warehousing activities in the market,” the report stated.

Safexpress has launched two new ultra-modern Logistics Parks in Maharashtra and one in Nagpur and another in Ranjangaon MIDC in Pune. Safexpress Logistics facilities in Maharashtra has a combined land area of 5.25 Lakh square feet, enabled with ultra-modern transhipment and 3PL facilities to boost storage and warehousing needs of the region, while providing for faster connectivity. The new Logistics Parks are cross-dock, have a column-less span of over 80 feet to facilitate simultaneous loading and unloading of multiple vehicles and unhindered movement of goods within the facility. To enable all-weather loading and unloading of goods, the facility is equipped with 16-feet wide Cantilever Shed. The logistics facilities have the required firefighting equipment and trained manpower to deal with such emergencies. The physical infrastructure will be backed by a robust IT infrastructure and an efficient warehouse management system.

“The launch of the National Logistics Policy is a watershed moment for Indian logistics’ sector and a step closer to developing a digitized, seamlessly integrated and efficient logistics ecosystem in India,” said Sunil Tyagi, Secretary, Warehousing Association of India (WAI). He shared his views and added, “Its emphasis on standardization and digitization to warehousing value chains is a welcome initiative. It will improve efficiency, productivity, and quality of services in the warehousing segment, canonized in the e-Handbook on Warehousing Standards, a guiding document launched alongside the Logistics Policy. The pivot towards promising technological initiatives such as the ULIP will help in integrating the logistics sector and ensuring first and last mile connectivity for seamless movement of people and goods.”

Mr. Vipin Vohra, Chairman, Continental Carriers Pvt Ltd (CCPL) was honoured at the 23rd Annual General Meet (AGM) of Association of Multimodal Transport Operators of India (AMTOI) held on 28 September 2022 in Mumbai where Mr. Xerxess Master, President, AMTOI felicitated Mr. Vohra Vohra for the completion of 50 years of the company in logistics business since incorporation.

To define higher standards and make transactions transparent and customer-friendly for the logistics and air cargo industry, Cargo Flash InfoTech launched a new product range ‘OCTOGO’ at the ongoing IATA World Cargo Symposium (WCS) 2022. Jasraj S Chug, Co-Founder & Director of Cargo Flash InfoTech who recently hosted a workshop on ‘DIGIGASM – The emerging world of Air Cargo’ at WCS said, “Octogo brings in a well-thought and carefully designed product line for the entire Air Cargo ecosystem. Our new and upcoming product lines are made to forecast rates, capacity, industry needs and demands triggering the development of data-driven decisions. We endeavour to tap transactions, supporting the growth of a digital environment that can unfold new opportunities for our customers. It will soon be ready to provide direct access to millions of global Air Cargo and Logistics stakeholders, all on a multi-faceted, cloud-based platform.” Both Jambojet and SalamAir to go live with Cargo Flash’s new Octogen, modular-based Cargo Management System (CMS), an advanced assemblage of its existing ‘nGen’ software, further developed under the ‘Octogo’ portfolio.

Shankar Shinde, Chairman, Federation of Freight Forwarders Association in India (FFFAI) said, “Logistics in India is an unorganized sector and there was a need to collate towards progress, achieving the government’s endeavours of striving towards single digit logistics cost aligning with developed countries to compete and promote our products in the international market. The National Logistics Policy (NLP) which was unveiled by the Hon’ble Prime Minister on September 17, 2022, aims towards reducing logistics cost to single digit to make India one of the viable manufacturing hubs in the world. Other key objectives of the NLP are to create common platform for better understanding of Government with stakeholders to assess and take steps towards developments and integrating the modes of transport, Multimodal with Transmodal to make it seamless and effective. In achieving “Atmanirbhar Bharat”and “Make in India” dream come true, the first and last mile delivery needs to be effective on real time monitoring basis to reduce dwell time and logistics cost. The NLP highlighted that present logistics cost is the result of multiple factors including policy framework and constraints of required infrastructure, both physical and IT, and aptly addressed those bottlenecks to facilitate the country’s manufacturing and domestic distribution for international trade supported by domestic connectivity.

The 52nd Annual General Meet of the Air Cargo Agents Association of India (ACAAI) was held in Mumbai wherein the following members were elected unopposed: Samir J Shah, Hon. Secretary from Star Freight, Ahmedabad, Praveen Menon – Hon. Treasurer from Interfreight Services, Chennai, Mahesh Trikha, Member Managing Committee from Aargus Global Logistics Ltd, Delhi, Ronald Goveas – Member Managing Committee from Skylink Freight, Mumbai, Vikram Kumar – Member Managing Committee from CTC Air Carriers, Delhi, Chaitaly Mehta – Member Managing Committee from EKF Global Logistics, Mumbai. The outgoing Hony. Treasurer Anil Vazirani of Robinson Cargo and Logistics Pvt Ltd has been co-opted as the Member Managing Committee. While M Afzal Malbarwala and C K Govil will continue as President and Vice President respectively. The AGM was attended by Members, Regional Chairman and Board of Advisors including Sam Katgara, Partner, Jeena and Company, Keshav Tanna, Links Forwarders Pvt Ltd, Vipin Vohra, Chairman, Continental Carriers and T A Varghese, Aroscan Cargo Trade. Radharamana Panicker of DGM India who was a special invitee enlightened the Members regarding the new competence-based training for Dangerous Goods which shall be enforced from 1 January 2023.

IndiGo (InterGlobe Aviation Ltd) newest aircraft an Airbus A321-211 (P2F), a first in India, ex-Avion Express, leased from Castlelake, is all set to touch the Indian skies soon, according to an official post on Linkedin. Mahesh Malik, Chief Commercial Officer-CarGo, IndiGo said: “We are pleased to receive our first A321 freighter aircraft in 6E fleet. CarGo has always been a success story for us especially highlighted during the pandemic. The CarGo business brought in revenues when the scheduled commercial flights were at a standstill. Our partnership with the Airbus for Freighter programme will further help strengthen our business in the CarGo segment, and act as a strong engine of economic growth for the country. We remain optimistic on the future of Indian aviation, clearly, and the place of CarGo within it – and the expansion into a true freighter fleet is a testament of this confidence.” The A321P2F (Passenger-to-Freighter conversion) is the most efficient narrow-bodied freighter available, offering 24 container positions and supporting a payload of up to 27 tonnes. These are being converted through a programme involving ST Engineering and Airbus with their joint venture, Elbe FlugzeugWerke (EFW). The aircraft is uniquely capable for IndiGo, using our current vast pool of A320 family pilots, and able to service markets between China in the east and the Gulf in the west, not forgetting the CIS countries to the north.

Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (BLR Airport) continues to be the No.1 airport for handling perishable shipments from India. BLR Airport recorded 52,366 Metric Tonnes (MT) of perishable shipments in FY 2021-22, compared to the previous year’s 48,130 MT. 41% of South India’s air-cargo perishable tonnage is currently handled by BLR Airport making it the leading airport for perishables in India. Fruits and vegetables along with the export of poultry and flower have been major segments driving this growth. 36,493 MT of poultry and 1,952 MT of flowers were exported from BLR Airport in FY’22. Doha emerged as the leading destination followed by Singapore, London, and Male. A total of 33 cargo freighter airlines transported perishable shipments from BLR Airport to 85 international destinations in FY’22. “BLR Airport has the advantage of dedicated cold zones enabling processing of perishable goods for export, which is the highest in India. The infrastructure that we provide ensures cold-chain integrity and seamless movement of perishables, without any change in the optimum storage temperature. Our recent partnerships with multiple cargo partners for infrastructure and technology will only make the Airport’s cargo capacity stronger and even better”, stated Satyaki Raghunath, Chief Strategy and Development Officer at Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL).