SME Times News Bureau | 30 Jul, 2009
Bringing down the logistics cost of 13% of the GDP now to a globally competitive 8% of GDP is itself the biggest business opportunity for the domestic logistics market of which warehousing is a key segment, said Ajay Shankar, Secretary, DIPP, Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

He was speaking at a Seminar on Building Warehousing Competitiveness: Adopt the best; organised in New Delhi on Wednesday by the Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) – Institute of Logistics. He opined that India faces an advantageous situation which can be explored by innovating and adopting the best practices in the industry.

Shankar congratulated Ramesh Subramianiam, President, Sri City Pvt Ltd for launching 500 acres logistics and warehousing park located 55 km from Chennai. The park has the distinction of being the largest private sector multi-modal SEZ and a Domestic Industrial Zone in South India, developed in functional partnership with the Government of Andhra Pradesh.

During the seminar Shankar released a CII-Institute of Logistics and Ernst & Young report titled ‘Warehousing without walls: A perspective of the warehousing industry and the way ahead’. The report brings forth ways to improve and make warehousing more efficient. It also focuses on capturing industry scenario, role of private sector and the government and leading business practices that can make India globally competitive.

Ajay Chopra, Chief Executive Officer, Drive India Enterprise Solutions Ltd, outlined that since warehousing supports the activity for which business is expected to happen, the purpose of warehousing must help in the process of selling and not just to store the merchandise. Therefore the picking process should be constantly revised keep in perspective the sales data of the companies. Layout, travel time and advanced technical solutions should be put to use for an efficient warehousing setup.

B B Pattanaik, Chairman, Seminar on Building Warehousing Competitiveness & Chairman and Managing Director, CWC expressed the possibility of implementation of Warehousing regulation and Development Act 2007 by October this year. He stated that the implementation of this act will establish an authority to regulate warehousing, bring in standardisation, accreditation and structured pricing. He analysed that bringing down the logistics cost by even 1% of GDP will strengthen the industry’s competitive capabilities.

Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII said that the area of logistics and supply chain is of considerable significance to the entire Indian industry. Building warehouse competitiveness is imperative for India. This can be easily managed with a partnership approach between Government and industry.