Indian logistics is looking at 10x growth but no drivers in sight: Gati MD

Bengaluru: While the Indian logistics industry will expand 10-fold in the next decade, it will be bereft of the quintessential truck drivers to sustain this growth, says Pirojshaw Sarkari, managing director and chief executive officer of Gati Express and Supply Chain Private Limited (Gati).

Speaking to DH on the sidelines of the launch of the company’s 3.5 lakh square feet Surface Transhipment Centre and Distribution Warehouse at Mayasandra, near Bengaluru in Karnataka, he underscored the impending driver shortage facing the industry.

This struggle will remain if proactive steps are not taken towards improving drivers’ working conditions, quality of life and self-respect. He also pointed to the he lack of skilled employees in the industry and urged stakeholders to focus on training and certifying the bottom end of the pyramid/ last layer of the logistics ecosystem. 

The Bengaluru warehouse is the fifth of the 21 hubs Gati is targeting to set up in the coming years. Nex in line are hubs Indore, Kolkata and Hyderabad this year. The Coimbatore hub will come up in the next phase. 

At Bengaluru, the unit is equipped with 70 truck bays capable of managing more than 500 vehicles per day with a throughput capacity of approximately 40,000 tonnes a month. The hub, which has been operational for about a month, currently handles average daily packers of over 70,000 packets (inbound and outbound pan-India). Its shipments go to Delhi, Jaipur, Ambala and Coimbatore being its largest demand markets and customers across domains- automotive, apparel, heavy engineering, retail among others. 

Bengaluru is Gati's largest delivery centre contributing 11-12 per cent of its overall volumes and is also the second largest market by revenue after Delhi. Connectivity is another big plus - with the Hosur Outer Ring Road coming up just 1.5 Km away and proximity to the railway and international airport, the company will be able to significantly reduce transit time, enabling faster deliveries, Sarkari explained. 

Now a group company of Allcargo, the 33-year-old Gati sees a challenge in digitisation - which has become the driving force of its competition. Yet, applauding the government’s initiatives like Gati Shakti and the National Logistics Policy, Sarkari said, “Unified Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP) will do to logistics what Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has done to the BFSI sector in India.” 

He pegged the company’s market share at 14 per cent of the organised logistics sector, second only to SafeExpress. He projected that Gati will become a Rs 3,000-crore company by 2026.

“We are not planning to get into any other business segment. Will stick to services for years to come,” Shashi Kiran Shetty, founder and chairman of Allcargo Group told DH. 

Pirojshaw Sarkari MD and CEO Gati Express and Supply Chain Pvt Limited (Gati)

Pirojshaw Sarkari MD and CEO Gati Express and Supply Chain Pvt. Limited (Gati)