Safexpress plans logistic parks in Nagpur, Indore

Safexpress Pvt Ltd, the New Delhi-based third-party logistics provider, plans to set up two huge capacity logistic parks to cater to the increasing demand, according to Pawan Jain, chairman and managing director.

Safexpress plans to invest Rs 20 crore for setting up the two parks in Nagpur and Indore which will be spread over an area of 23 acre each.

"The land acquisition for Nagpur is already complete and negotiations are likely to be finalised shortly," Jain said.

The geographical position of these two cities will help the company to deliver their consignments within two days to any place in the country, he added.

Logistic service providers will be facing huge demand once the value added tax (VAT) sets in, Jain said.

"With VAT in place, manufacturers need not have a local depot in the states to get benefit of central sales tax and now they can directly send their products to any location. This will enhance the business opportunity of organised logistic service providers," said Jain. Safexpress has introduced corporate warehousing model offering clients centralised warehousing operations to maximise cost savings in the form of uniform tax in the states.

"Safexpress will work toward providing its customers an infrastructure facility to enable them to cut down 4-10 per cent of their supply chain costs," Jain added.

Safexpress is also planning to purchase twenty more 48 feet long container vehicle from Volvo for its north-south corridor that will run between Bangalore and Delhi, informed Jain.

The first set of ten Volvo container that was purchased by Safexpress at Rs 3.5 crore will be launched on 21st March, he confirmed.

This set of Volvo containers will be running between Pune and Chennai, he informed.

Safexpress has initiated discussion with some of US-based logistic service provider, Jain said. This will be the company's second overseas tie-up after its ties with Panalpina, based in Basel, Switzerland.

"Overseas assignment contributes to around 20 per cent of the over all business and more than 8 per cent comes from the US. A tieup with a US-based company is expected shortly," he added.

Safexpress is expected to register a turnover of Rs 300 crore in 2004-05 and has set a target of Rs 400 crore for the next year.

The company is also planning to invest around Rs 50 crore for setting up infrastructure, mainly in warehouse and further container carriers.

Safexpress will also be investing around Rs 15 crore in technology development including enterprise resource planning linking 519 destination through which it operates, added Jain.