SME Times News Bureau | 22 Oct, 2018
The Indian cargo
industry needs to grow at a rate of about 12.9 per cent every year from 2018 to
2027 to achieve National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP 2016) vision of reaching
cargo volumes of 10 million tonnes (MT) by 2027, noted a recent ASSOCHAM-Auctus
Advisors joint study.
"There is an urgent
need to uplift Indian cargo market to achieve the overall vision of the
aviation ministry," suggested the knowledge report on Civil Aviation and Cargo,
conducted by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India
(ASSOCHAM) jointly with consultancy firm Auctus Advisors.
The report noted that
international and domestic air freight is projected to grow at an overall
compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.2 per cent.
"Considering this
trend to continue till 2027, projected international and domestic air cargo
will be 3.6 MT and 2.1 MT respectively resulting in total air cargo traffic of
6.8 MT."
The study also
highlighted various issues confronting aviation logistics sector in India -
lack of enabling infrastructure, lack of automated material handling systems,
high manual intervention in the processes and inadequate skilled manpower are
some of the key areas where Indian air cargo industry lags global peers.
"There is an urgent
need for creating adequate freight carrying capacity within Indian air network
through creation of new cargo terminals and expansion of existing ones."
The ASSOCHAM-Auctus
study suggested implementing a rating system for cargo terminals in-line with
ASQ (Airport Service Quality) ratings at passenger terminal to motivate
operators to improve infrastructure and provide superior quality of services.
It also suggested
undertaking pro-active measures to indentify tier-2 and tier-3 cities for
setting up common user domestic cargo terminal (CUDCT).
