Govt to undetake studies on food grain storage, transportation

The Union Government is planning to create a special purpose vehicle to undertake studies of food grain storage handling and transportation.

The Planning Commission will do a comprehensive study to suggest measures to create modern food-grain storage infrastructure in the country, said Prof K.V. Thomas, Minister of State, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.

Funds for warehousing

Delivering his inaugural address at the two-day conference on Building warehousing competitiveness, organised here by the Confederation of Indian Industry, the Minister said Rs 2,000 crore from the corpus of Rural Infrastructure Development Fund would be allocated to create warehousing facilities across States to increasing warehousing capacity in a focussed manner.

To lure investment

Stressing on the need to encourage more investment in the warehousing sector, Prof Thomas said the biggest challenge is modernisation of infrastructure and delivering the most efficient service in terms of time, and “public-private partnership is the key for that”. The efficiency of the private sector and the fundamentals of the public sector can be combined and the risk is shared, he said.

According to Mr R. Dinesh, Event Chairman and Joint Managing Director of TVS & Sons Ltd, warehousing accounts for about 20 per cent of the domestic logistics market and is expected to grow at a rate of 35-40 per cent annually, displaying high potential for growth over the next few years.

“It is imperative for the warehousing sector to not only modernise but also adopt best practices to achieve a world-class infrastructure platform,” he said.

In his address, Mr Dilraj Singh Gandhi, Principal Consultant, PricewaterhouseCoopers, said from a mere combination of transportation and storage services logistics is fast emerging as a strategic function that involves end-to-end solutions that improve efficiencies.

Global initiatives

Talking about the Global initiatives for efficient logistics, Mr Mark Drabenstott, Secretary General, Global Coalition for Efficient Logistics, said GCEL is conducting a rigorous shipment efficiency assessment in many nations across the globe.

The survey is designed to span the entire shipment flow, thus yielding an in-depth understanding of the strengths and bottlenecks in a particular country's logistics pipelines.

As a result, the findings provide a useful road map to overcome the weaknesses, reduce time and costs, expand trade and ultimately fuel sustained economic growth, he said.

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