Blue Dart plans Rs 22 cr expansion

Company bets big on import-express business.

Logistics major Blue Dart Express Ltd has planned an investment of Rs 22 crore during the current year to expand its facilities network in the country.

The Rs 487-crore company, of which 80 per cent is owned by DHL Limited, is also betting big on the import-express business it launched a month ago.

Blue Dart's senior vice-president for western region Anil Khanna told the media on Wednesday that the company would complete the expansion by the end of 2007, when it will have created a network of 20 new facilities including 12 warehouses across the country.

Of the proposed investment, Rs 8 crore would be in the western region that accounts for about a third of the company's business. Four of the proposed facilities will be in the western region, he said. The company opened two new warehouses in Pune on Wednesday.

He said Blue Dart would cater to the needs of major clients like Bharat Forge, LG Electronics, Wipro or IBM in Pune.

It currently has three facilities in Pune including the one at Tathawade, which it opened some time back.

He said the import-express business, started in collaboration with DHL, would bring sizeable advantage to the importers as they would save a lot of time in terms of handling and holding costs as well as tracking activity.

"We intend to bring down the time needed for imports from anything between one and three weeks to about 72 hours," Khanna said. "DHL has a network in 200 countries and we are strong in India, so both will leverage the positions and share the revenues from the business."

In the first year (2007), the company expects about 2 per cent of its business to come from import-express offering. Its current exposure to international operations is about 63 lakh consignments - less than one per cent of the entire volume of the company's operations.

Blue Dart's senior vice-president for marketing and projects, Tulsi Mirchandani, said the company was presently witnessing a load factor of about 80 per cent for its seven aircraft, which operate between its seven hubs in India.

About 80 per cent of the company's business was in the corporate segment, she said, adding that banking, pharma, electronics and IT were among the fastest growing verticals for the company.