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TCI to upgrade cold chain infrastructure
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Saturday, 17 February, 2007, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Dhwani Pandya, Mumbai
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n sector, Transport Corporation of India Ltd (TCI), one of the pioneers in the cargo transportation industry in the country is looking at investing and upgrading its current infrastructure of cold chain services. In the next eighteen months apart from doubling its fleet (of almost 6000 trucks every day) with modern vehicles, the company will also invest in new offices and upgrading its IT systems, informed Vineet Agarwal, executive director, TCI. The Group with a turnover of over Rs 850 crores is Asia's largest integrated logistics solutions company.
In the coming few months TCI will strengthen its focus in the fruits, vegetables and meat segments to meet the growing demand of upcoming retail giants who want to grab a bigger share of fresh food market. It is looking at forging strategic partnerships that would help establish a seamless chain from farmers to the consumer encompassing all links from pre harvest to post harvest to end consumer.
In fact, in the last week, the company also announced its strategic MoU with Container Corporation of India Ltd (CONCOR) to provide rail-road based door to door logistics services to customers. The move is considered as a part of company's long-term strategy to provide integrated supply chain and logistics solutions.
"Though all the links that are required in cold chain are available in India, they are in isolation," informed Agarval. There is an increasing need for integrated cold chain solutions. Recognising the same TCI is also working on establishing a seamless chain from farmers to the consumer.
TCI cold chain mainly caters to time sensitive and perishable items such as food, beverages, chemicals, pharma, confectioneries, meat and diary products. It provide various kind of service under cold chain which includes pre-coolers that remove field heat of harvested produce, post harvest cold storage facility, temperature and humidity controlled transportation through reefer vans, cold storage/warehousing at specific temperature and humidity and secondary transportation through reefer vans.
The booming retail sector has postively affected the cold chain sector. Agreeing to the same Agarwal said, "Corporates like Bharti have tied up with Wal-Mart who are pioneers in retail supply chain. Some of the corporate are looking for their own supply chain where as others are looking for outsourcing. The existing cold chain infrastructure is not sufficient to serve the requirement and the estimated investment required in the next 10 years, which is more than 25,000 crores (Yes Bank Report). Hence, the cold chain infrastructure scenario is set to change dramatically in the next 5 years," Agarwal said.
The projected worth of the cold chain market is Rs 8,000-10,000 crores. The industry is growing at a rate of 20 to 25%. There is an urgent need for better quality cold chain services in the food industry. The wastage in food industry is Rs 20,000 million. Lack of uniformity in sales tax structure on processed foods, high import duties on cold chain equipment, restrictions on inter-state movement, absence of pre-cooling and cold storage infrastructure at the place of harvesting, fewer organised retail chains with backend infrastructure, absence of IT system to track and share the data across the supply chain are some of the factor that are responsible for hampering the growth of cold chain sector which needs to be addressed immediately by the government.
TCI has already taken some steps to overcome the above mentioned problem. Revealing the same Agarwal said, "In the first phase we have started refrigerated transportation. We have substantial fleet of reefer vehicles to cater the niche market. After stabilising into the refrigerated transportation, we are planning to provide the cold storage/warehousing facility at major cities all across the country."
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