Product-specific warehouses to come up at ports, national waterways

The smaller players will need to pay a nominal fee to make use of this infrastructure

The government on Thursday said it will set up product-specific warehouses at ports and national waterways.

The purpose of development of this infrastructure is to reduce the storage losses, minimise logistic costs and facilitate distribution of cargo in the hinterland, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MoPSW) said in a statement.

"The (MoPSW) intends to create product-specific warehouses or silos at various ports (including both major and non-major ports), Multi Modal Logistics Parks located near port area and alongside the national waterways," the statement said.

The ministry is targeting to develop the product-specific warehouses at ports for cement silos, liquid tanks, chemicals tanks, cold storage, electronics product storage, and pharmaceutical storage, among others.

"While the big players have their own warehouses and storage spaces, the smaller players find it difficult to get their product-specific storage silos at various locations," the statement said.

The development of these world-class warehousing spaces will give a big push, especially to such small logistics players for their ease of doing business with better planning and inventory management, it added.

The statement said this will immensely benefit them as currently, their loaded trucks keep waiting to find appropriate storage near ports quite often. "In turn, it will reduce the losses as compared to the traditional warehousing and provide more robust and cost-effective supply chain."

For implementation of these envisaged projects, the ministry is ascertaining the interest of the various Indian companies and developers under the public-private partnership model.

"It is the endeavour of the ministry that various permissions and approvals from regulatory and statutory government authorities are facilitated expeditiously through Sagarmala Development Company Ltd," the statement said.

If warranted, the ministry will facilitate equity in the projects in the special purpose vehicle (SPV) framework in order to smoothly implement these world-class infrastructure projects, it added.

Ports, Shipping and Waterways Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said, "We are planning to create world-class product-specific agglomeration centre on the 'pay-and-use' model which will immensely benefit the small traders and logistics players."

He added that it will result into transporting their cargoes through the cheapest mode of transportation, which is through sea or waterways.

Hence, these agglomeration centers will drastically reduce the country's overall logistics cost and give a boost to export-import trade through coastal shipping. "It would also create employment opportunities in the coastal areas," he added.

The ministry aims to reduce logistic cost with appropriate infrastructure interventions as part of its ambitious Sagarmala Programme.

This is the ministry's flagship programme to promote port-led development in the country by harnessing potential of India's 7,500-km-long coastline and 21,000-km navigable waterways.