Transport Corporation of India MD calls for promoting more infrastructure in the upcoming budget

In an interview, Agarwal mentioned that the logistics sector is highly dependent on infrastructure development, which includes increased infrastructure spending and response to new infrastructure, in turn affecting the logistics sector directly or indirectly.

He also expressed hope that more funding would be a major boost under the National Infrastructure Pipeline.

“The logistics sector is heavily dependent on what happens to the infrastructure and the kind of infrastructure that is being created and envisaged in the national infrastructure pipeline. If the allocation for infrastructure spending continues. and grows which will directly and indirectly help the logistics sector,” he said.

Many experts and industry participants are expecting an increase in capital expenditure by the government in infrastructure to propel growth as the economy is on recovery mode to FY2011 lows. Concerns of a third COVID and the spread of the Omron version have increased the demand for public spending on infrastructure.

He reiterated the industry’s long-standing demand for bringing petrol and diesel under the ambit of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and said that with higher fuel prices, an Input Tax Credit (ITC) for industries including logistics. will be helpful. Area.

TCI’s MD noted that over 60% of cargo moves through roads and only 20%-25% is transported via railways, and the latter is much less than the rest of the world and needs to be replaced. Is required.

Further, he said there is a need to bring down the logistics cost and to achieve this there is a need to move towards multimodal logistics. He also said that there is a need to minimize losses and losses in the system, which inevitably leads to wastage.

He also stressed on the need for digitization of India’s logistics network which will reduce the speed of processes and also reduce the cost. He said that all these aspects have been kept in mind by the government while drafting the logistics policy.

“Hopefully, we should see it adopted and implemented soon,” he said.

Talking about multimodal logistics parks, he said that some such logistics parks have started coming up in different parts of the country.

“They’re very interesting and I think we’ll see and see how they are or what places they come from and how they’re going to develop for us to consider in the future, but right now we don’t consider anything in our context.” are investing,” he said.

On TCI’s investment plans going forward, Agarwal said the company intends to buy more ships and containers in the next financial year.

On Thursday, the logistics major reported a 143% rise in its consolidated net profit for the quarter ended December 206 crores. During the same period of FY 2011, it had recorded a net profit of 85 crores.

On the strong performance in the October-December quarter, he said the company did well even amid the pandemic largely due to its diversified offerings ranging from cargo transportation via road, rail and waterways to value-added services like warehousing, cold chain services Is. freight forwarding.