1. SHIPPERSQUESTION26 CARGOTALK NOVEMBER 2014
Kill hiccups with better transportation
How do you foresee the
future of logistics market
of the manufacturing and
retail sector in India?
Vision 2020
The Indian logistics industry is
growing fast but still a lot work is
required in terms of infrastructure
support. By 2020, India will be a
country with a well-developed net-
work of roads and railways and ade-
quate capacity to handle the growth
in demand for transport. It is expect-
ed that the volume of road traffic will
multiply about five-fold, carried over
a 70,000 km network of National
Highways, including 5,000 to 10,000
km of expressways linking the golden
quadrangle of Delhi-Mumbai-
Chennai-Kolkata-Delhi as well as
northern, southern, eastern and
western portions of the country most-
ly with four or more lanes. State
Highways with at least two way lanes
will link most districts.
How important is
efficient logistics for
your overall growth?
Please give brief
details of your overall
growth also.
Development is directed at
improving the welfare of a society
through appropriate social, political
and economic conditions.
The expected outcomes are
quantitative and qualitative improve-
ments in human capital as well as
physical capital such as
infrastructure. Because of its inten-
sive use of infrastructure, the
transport sector is an important com-
ponent of the economy and a
common tool used for development.
This is even more so in a global
economy where economic opportu-
nities are increasingly related to the
mobility of people, goods and infor-
mation. A relation between the
quantity and quality of transport
infrastructure and the level of eco-
nomic development is apparent.
High density transport infrastructure
and highly connected networks
are commonly associated with high
levels of development. When
transport systems are efficient, they
provide economic and social
opportunities and benefits that
result in positive multipliers effects
such as better accessibility
to markets, employment and
additional investments.
In the similar fashion the
growth in production of steel
over the last decade has moved
alongside the development of
logistics industry.
What are the crucial
bottlenecks faced by
this sector?
The policies that restrict, and
raise the cost of, international flows
of goods, services and knowledge
are increasingly domestic and of a
regulatory nature – the so called non-
tariff measures (NTMs). Examples
are product regulations (purportedly
to achieve health, safety or security
objectives), licensing requirements,
certification and conformity assess-
ment procedures, data reporting
standards, various check post and
barriers for different states and differ-
ent requirements.
Is there any
unique/specific strategy
that you have adopted
for better supply of
products?
A key strategy adopted in the
most efficient and economical ways
of utilising the coastal and rail move-
ment is the introduction of higher
capacity vehicle as it’s the most com-
patible for the product.
How do you manage
back-end supply?
The supply chain man-
agement is the logistics aspect
of a value delivery chain. It
comprises all of the parties that
participate in the retail logistics
process:Manufacturers, whole-
salers, third party specialists
like shippers, order fulfillment
house, etc. and the retailer.
Here, logistics is the total
process of planning, imple-
menting and coordinating the
physical movement of mer-
chandise from manufacturer to
retailer to customer in the most
timely, effective and cost effi-
cient manner possible.
Logistics regards order pro-
cessing and fulfillment, trans-
portation, warehousing, cus-
tomer service and inventory man-
agement as interdependent func-
tions in the value delivery chain. It
oversees inventory management
decisions as items travel through a
retail supply chain. If a logistics sys-
tem works well, the retail
reduces stock outs, hold down inven-
tories and improve customer
service – all at the same time.
Timing is the critical
factor. How do you
manage the balance
between internal
operation and supply
chain requirements?
It’s always a challenge to
strike a balance between
internal operation and supply
chain reason considering the
complexity involved in the
manufacturing process and the time
period required for the
production.Even the variation on the
variants of products further adds
to its complexity. To manage
the situation, we work on
N- 45 days’ cycle.
What percentage of your
logistics work is
outsourced? What
functions are performed
by your logistics
partners and what are
controlled internally?
In a way outsourcing is to the
extent of 100 per cent, but to an
internal group company.
CT BUREAU
Efficient transport systems result in positive multipliers such as better accessibility to markets, employment and
additional investments. Ravi Singh, CEO & Managing Director, Essar Steel Hypermarket informs about the
growth in production of steel over the last decade along side the development of logistics industry.
Ravi Singh
CEO & Managing Director
Essar Steel Hypermarket
A call for making scientific storage facilities
Aiming to popularise the pro-
cedures for accreditation of
warehouses, the Warehousing
Development and Regulatory
Authority (WDRA) is recently
organising a series of awareness
programmes for farmers and
other stakeholders such as
banks. Addressing a programme
organised by NABARD in
Coimbatore, Dinesh Rai, WDRA
Chairman, emphasised on the
need for making scientific stor-
age facilities available to farmers
to enable them avoid distress
sale and realise better price for
their produce. R Inigo Arul
Selvan, Assistant General
Manager, NABARD, said that the
Rural Infrastructure
Development Fund and the
Warehousing Infrastructure Fund
operated through NABARD sup-
ports construction of warehouses
in the state. “The Primary
Agricultural Cooperative
Societies, Cooperative Marketing
Societies, TN Civil Supplies
Corporation, State Agricultural
Marketing Board and State
Warehousing Corporation have
constructed warehouses and
increased their storage capacity
with the support of NABARD in
the last two-three years,” Selvan
added. Ramakrishnan, MD,
Coimbatore District Central
Cooperative Bank, said, “Steps
were being taken for accrediting
the large number of small
godowns maintained by the
PACS, so that these godowns can
issue Negotiable Warehouse
Receipts (NWR).”
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