Mumbai has come into view as the most preferred destination for logistics and warehousing companies with proposed investments for setting up logistics parks in the city touching around Two hundred million dollar (Rs872 crore), a report said.
In spite of their lack of support infrastructure, smaller cities such as Nagpur in Maharashtra, Gurgaon in Haryana, Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, were recognized as promising locations, based on their proximity to manufacturing centres, geographic location and accessibility, according to the report released by real estate consultant Cushman and Wakefield Inc.
“Since almost one-third of the total realty development in the sector is expected to take place in emerging locations, many tier II and tier III cities and peripheral locations that offer good connectivity to multiple markets will witness increased activity from logistics players, providing a thrust to the real estate market,” said a statement from Cushman and Wakefield India’s joint managing director Sanjay Dutt.
The report estimates that 110 logistics parks, spread over 3,500 acres and costing $1 billion, will be operational by 2012 across the country. This is apart from some 45 million sq. ft of warehousing space costing $500 million that will come up during the period.
Bangalore, Indore Ambala, Ahmedabad, Jamshedpur and Alwar were classified as promising hubs in the report.
Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad were rated as “established logistics hubs”.
“Logistics people have started tapping (areas) closer to manufacturing locations because our arterial distribution networks such as the railways and the national highways are clogged,” said C.S. Verma, vice-chairman and managing director of logistics company ACV Logistics Pvt. Ltd.