Category Archives: Warehousing

Assam is all set to have country’s first international multi-modal hub, informs Chandra Mohan Patowary, Assam Industry and Commerce Minister. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has agreed to fund the project at an estimated cost of around Rs 600 crore. “The Government of Assam is planning to develop Jogighopa, a small township near Brahmaputra river, as a logistics hub or trans-shipment point for cargo moving from Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland to Bangladesh,” the minister informs. In addition, the Munshiganj River Terminal in Bangladesh will be used as a customs station to handle third-party export and import cargo via Kolkata Port. “To bring about a significant reduction in logistics cost and faster delivery of Bangladesh export cargo, the Indian side has raised the point regarding permitting a third country export-import trade under the coastal shipping agreement and protocol on inland water transit and trade (PIWTT) by allowing trans-shipment through ports on the east coast of India. The Bangladesh government agreed to hold stakeholder consultations and revert on the matter,” Patowary said. “Increasing connectivity through air, water, rail, road offer a mutually beneficial opportunity for enhancing economic cooperation between Bangladesh and the Northeastern states of India and beyond. Standard operating procedures for the use of Chattagram and Mongla ports for movement of goods to and from India, particularly to and from the Northeast of India have recently been concluded and it is expected that it would create a win-win situation for both economies,” he adds.

Highlighting the need for a robust cold chain infrastructure to strengthen the supply and storage of perishables to suffice India’s population, Manoj Pant, Regional Business Manager West, Snowman Logistics, notes “India is home to 535 agri-tech startups that use technology to bolster agricultural productivity. Food security in India has been immensely impacted by the pandemic in four main aspects – availability, accessibility, stability, and utilisation of food. Disruption in supply chains and a decline in demand have caused a loss of production and income to the farmers and traders. Closure of mandis and QSRs due to the lockdown led to a surplus accumulation of perishables. Since post-harvest losses are highest in the fruit and vegetable sector, agri-tech startups can bridge the gap with demand-driven cold chains, warehouse monitoring solutions, and market linkages that can significantly boost farmer income. With innovations in technology like storage monitoring based on the Internet of Things (IoT), image sensing for quality grading and digitisation of mandis will prevent the wastage of perishables.

According to the findings by CBRE the cold storage segment in India is expected to witness significant growth over the next few years on the back of a strong consumer and industrial base. Following the COVID-19 outbreak, the demand for cold storage is also being further fueled by a wider omni-channel distribution of F&G across tier I and tier II cities in the country. Further, the cold chain network would also play a vital role in reducing the loss of the produce and improving cold storage efficiencies. States including Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Punjab Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Haryana and Karnataka accounted for 91 per cent the total CS capacity in India in 2019. The overall cold storage real estate stock in the country is estimated to reach 1,400 – 1,500 million sq. ft. by 2023. Anshuman Magazine, Chairman, India & South East Asia, Middle East & Africa, CBRE said, “Cold storage facilities play an integral role in improving the shelf life of products and are an important enabler for several industries working across fresh food production and delivery; along with healthcare and other products such as flowers and chemicals. Considering the potential of the CS segment in the country, we expect that consumer/industry-led factors in India would continue to attract the interest of leading players in the coming years.”

According to a joint report by Binswanger Commercial Real Estate Services and ANAROCK Group focusing on ‘Indian Industrial & Logistics – Gearing Up a Global Manufacturing Hub’, high-intensity focus on making India a global manufacturing hub has caused warehousing clusters to expand rapidly beyond the top cities and into tier 2 and 3 cities. The report says that demand for small and multi-location warehouses is expected to rise significantly. Most of these emerging clusters are aligned with the industrial and freight corridors being developed in the country. The emerging tier 2 and 3 warehousing clusters include Ludhiana, Ambala, Lucknow, Siliguri, Guwahati, Bhubaneshwar, Vishakhapatnam, Vijaywada, Coimbatore, Kochi, Nagpur, Indore, Jaipur and Dholera. Shobhit Agarwal, MD & CEO, ANAROCK Capital says, “The rising demand for Grade-A warehousing properties across the country is a key trend. Our data indicates that there is more than 110 mn sq. ft. of Grade-A warehousing stock available across the country – most of it in the top 8 cities. 3PL (third-party logistics) and e-commerce are the largest occupiers of warehousing space. There is a massive opportunity for Grade-A warehousing development in the smaller cities amidst rising demand.” The report highlights that nearly US$ 7 billion worth platforms have been created for the warehousing sector since 2015. Over US$ 2 billion in PE investments have been infused in the industrial and logistics sector between 2017 and Q1 2020. Investors are upbeat on this sector and are working closely with developers to identify warehousing investment opportunities.

Spoton Logistics has expanded its logistics network by scaling up logistics hubs in Nagpur, Bengaluru, and Chennai respectively. The hubs offer comprehensive facilities to expand the horizon of deliveries during the festive season and support future growth in the regions. With its comprehensive delivery network, Spoton Logistics will continue to enable timely deliveries for eCommerce and retail giants in India. Currently enabling the delivery of 17,500 consignment notes (around 1,40,000 pieces) each day, the company is expecting a significant surge this festive season with Retail, eCommerce, and FMCG sectors driving this spike. “2020 has been an uphill battle for mankind. Months into the pandemic, businesses and consumers have found their way through to the new normal. With an increased adoption of e-commerce in the country, companies are betting big on online sales this festive season. The just-in-time expansion will help us significantly increase scalability for our customers while our web portal for them would ensure paperless and quick transactions. Moreover, Spoton Logistics is uniquely positioned as one of the most agile, innovative, and forward-thinking companies that can cater to the logistics needs of businesses in the current challenging business environment,” says, Abhik Mitra, MD & CEO, Spoton Logistics. “We ended the month of June and July with a recovery of greater than 90 per cent of pre-lockdown figures, and have surpassed our pre-COVID revenues during September. With the onset of the festive season, we are poised to further build on this momentum and have designed an effective roadmap for the same,” he adds.

In order to cater to the upcoming festive season demand, Gati-KWE has revamped its express distribution, warehousing, and supply chain management services. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the company expects robust 50 per cent growth in volumes during the October-December festive season. The company is actively building capacity, strengthening its supply chain and delivery capabilities to cater to the expected volume rush. “We are further augmenting our express logistics capacity by two-fold for the upcoming festive season. Our decision to expand resources and service bandwidth by hiring additional trucks is a consequence of our experience and understanding of the market underlined by our commitment to efficiently accommodate the increased and dynamic demands of our customers during this period. As we go about doubling our capabilities, we are also giving utmost attention to COVID-19 care and safety and ensuring 100% adherence to precautions for our staff members, operators, partners, and all other stakeholders working with us,” said Bala Aghoramurthy, Deputy Managing Director, Gati-KWE Ltd. The company is aggressively promoting various offers to drive sales. These intense efforts are expected to significantly drive logistics volumes and demand in the festive season. Additionally, the changes in buying patterns suggest that consumer sentiment in India is gradually improving. According to the recent Mintel research findings, almost 30% of Indian consumers surveyed, plan to spend more on clothes and accessories followed by other goods.

Sharing his views on warehouse consolidation, Naveen Rawat, Director & Co-founder, Holisol Logistics, says, “With GST, the idea was to merge all the warehouses into two or three hubs and serve the entire country because the speed to market was not even a differentiator at that point of time. The emergence of e-commerce has done that today though GST allows you to consolidate all into one, the key business differentiator is to serve your customer faster than your competitor. Consolidation is a long-term process and at the same time the market is evolving and going towards two-hour delivery or 90-minutes delivery and hence more stock points are required.”

Kool-ex has partnered with IndoSpace to build customised, Good Distribution Practice (GDP)/and Good Warehousing Practice (GWP) compliant, temperature controlled, Pharma Distribution Centres across the country. The spread of services will include warehousing, secondary distribution, passive packaging and blockchain for end-to-end tractability of pharma products, apart from its core existing business of providing temperature-controlled transportation. IndoSpace has pan-India network of Grade A warehouses, and the partnership with Kool-ex will enable IndoSpace to venture into pharma warehousing. As part of the deal, Kool-ex and IndoSpace will jointly design and set up three warehouses in Phase-I by 2021 in proximity to Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. Kool-ex has plans to setup 10 to 11 warehouss by 2023, making it the largest Pharma storage footprint in the country.

Spread over more than 2 lakh square feet area, Amazon has launched third Fulfilment Centre (FC) in Ahmedabad. The expansion in Gujarat is a part of the company’s plans announced in July to add 10 new fulfilment centres and expand seven existing sites, across India. With this infrastructure expansion, Amazon now offers a storage capacity of more than 1.5 million cubic feet across three fulfilment centres to its more than 80,000 sellers in Gujarat. Amazon recently launched a new sort centre and expanded the capacity of an existing sort centre to ensure faster and reliable deliveries for customer orders in Gujarat. Prakash Kumar Dutta, Director of Fulfilment Centres & Supply Chain, Amazon India, said, “Gujarat is an important market for Amazon India and we are delighted to further invest and expand our infrastructure in the State. With this expansion, SMBs in Gujarat will benefit both in terms of economic growth and reach to a wider customer base. With the new launches, we will be able to continue to seamlessly cater to the growing demand from customers so they can stay home and stay safe while creating thousands of job opportunities in the state.”

Talking about the future of warehousing industry, John Thomas, Group Director, Realistic Realtors & Reach Promoters and Director at CIRIL (Commercial Real Estate Advisors), says, “Warehousing has always been a centre of many sectors, whether it is FMCG, retail, fashion or 3PL companies. Warehouse will not go anywhere, it’s here to stay and become stronger. This entire COVID-19 disruption has made us think on various innovations, initiatives which we should do for our better future such as Grade-A warehouses with better facility and automation for more supplies. Today, we are facing a difficulty of getting a good and ready Grade-A warehouse in a decent location. In Delhi, we don’t have a legally compliant warehouse, the government needs to get in line and give that support and make it smoother for a warehouse to get legally compliant.”