CWC to set up 22 railside warehousing complexes

The Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC), a Government of India undertaking, is planning to set up 22 railside warehousing complexes (RWCs) at major rail terminals across the country including one at Nashik Road here.

The CWC is also planning to form a 51:49 subsidiary with private logistics players for the purpose.

N K Choubey, managing director, CWC, said, "Today, logistics is the fastest growing segment and we want to become a major logistics provider in the country. Many retailing companies like Wal-Mart are coming to India and we want to fulfil their logistic requirements. Logistics is incomplete without access to rails."

He said CWC recently singed a memorandum of understanding with the railways ministry in this regard. As per the MoU, the land for construction of warehouses will be provided by the railways on long-term lease while the cost of construction will be borne by the CWC.

"In the first phase by April 2007, the CWC will set up 10 RWCs at 10 major rail terminals including Nashik Road, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Bhopal and Lucknow. The remaining RWCs would come up at Pune, Akola and Mumbai, among others in the second phase by December 2007. The investment in each RWC will be around Rs 12 crore and the storage capacity of each will be around 15,000 metric tonne (MT)," Choubey said.

The RWCs will facilitate direct unloading of the wagons into the warehouse. Transporting of goods after clearance from the rake to the godown will be avoided so there will be no need to hire godowns away from goods shed.

This will result in heavy savings in handling cost. The rake can be cleared very quickly thereby avoiding rake detention and railway wharfages.

The rake unloading operations will not be affected due to rains, transport strike, non-availability of trucks, congestion of the roads or such other factors, he said.

Meanwhile, work on the proposed RWC at Nashik Road has already begun and it is expected to start operations by April.

Initially, its storage capacity will be 9,000 MT, which will be increased up to 15,000 MT. It will be fully computerised . Of the 40-wagon rake, 32 can be placed for storage in godowns and 8 for direct loading into trucks.