Preparation of city logistics plan for Chennai and Coimbatore is on

CHENNAI : The preparation of city logistics plans for Chennai and Coimbatore has been under way, said Sandeep Nanduri, Managing Director, Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO). At a session on State Logistics Policy, organised by TIDCO in collaboration with the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), Mr. Sandeep made an elaborate presentation, according to which the multi-modal logistics park (Phase 1), coming up at Mappedu, near Chennai, will become operational by 2027.

“The MMLP Coimbatore land acquisition is in advanced stages,” he said at a session on State Logistics Policy that was organised by Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) in collaboration with the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI).

Container Corporation of India Ltd (CONCOR) will be setting up a net zero ambient cold storage warehouse at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai. “We chose this area mainly because we had land there and that’s the electronics corridor of Tamil Nadu. We have a 1.30 lakh sq ft of warehouse space at Sriperumbudur. The tenders will be coming out soon,” said G.Gayatri, Area Head – III, CONCOR.

“Our target is by next April, we should have it ready. The investment will be substantial at around Rs.60 crore. We are in talks with MNCs in Sriperumbudur,” she said.

Tamil Nadu industries secretary V Arun Roy said, “While current logistics infrastructure is satisfactory, a lot more needs to be done to improve this, including addressing congestion in roads, reducing transit time from industrial clusters to the ports, improving ports and addressing gaps in cold chain infrastructure,” he said.

Ramkumar Shankar, Managing Director of Chemplast Sanmar Ltd and President of the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: “Right now, the MCCI is working on a study on the existing Chennai Airport. There are lot of good things that have come up at the airport and changes too. There are certain constraints on the passenger end, but we are also focusing on the cargo side as well in the study. We will present the findings to the government four weeks from now,” he added.

I.Jeyakumar, Member Secretary, Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA), gave examples of problem statements and what strategies could be used. One problem statement was movement of air parcel cargo to airport gets complex using LCV and delivery vans causing congestion during peak hours and impacting passenger movement. He suggested that utilization of Metrorail network can be a strategy.