Mumbai, India: Logistics company Gateway Distriparks is planning a four-fold capacity increase in cold storage to take advantage of the government’s stimulus measures to improve the food distribution system.
Chairman Gopinath Pillai says:” “In the cold store business we are already at about 16,000 to 17,000 pallets. We would be hoping to drive up our capacity to almost 60,000-65,000 pallets in a matter of two to three years because we feel confident about the market.”
India, in a bid to check rising food inflation, took steps in this year’s annual budget to spruce up fresh food distribution systems by building cold storage facilities and making more loans available to farmers.
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has previously said that cold storage chains would be given infrastructure status, providing tax benefits to drive construction of new facilities.
Gateway’s cold chain unit Snowman Logistics contributes about 8% to consolidated sales, with the remainder coming from its container freight station and rail businesses.
