Mr Rubal Jain of Safe Express talks to Rob O’Byrne about Logistics in India.
“Rob:
Now if you thought that Logistics Challenges in India were substantial , have a look at this map – they are substantial. Hi this is Rob O’Byrne of Logistics Bureau and today I’ll be talking to Mr. Rubal who’s the Managing Director of Safe Express a 3PL company based in India.
I understand you operate all over India perhaps you can tell us what are the key challenges of Logistics in India.
Rubal:
So apart from what we know of the infrastructure challenges, the roads, the networks up to the market road. In fact, yesterday there was a traffic Rose right along this corridor and it was 30kms long.
Rob:
30 km traffic Rose, wow!
Rubal:
And it was dead still for 30 kms and we expect that to be a big challenge, apart from that the deal with India is not a cohesive country from state to state inter action perspective. The moment you crossed a border of a state, it’s almost a custom set up, it’s almost like immigration.
Rob:
Is this what you call octroi? The taxes between states?
Rubal:
Different kinds, VAT it’s what it is. Octroi is within the state within the city, so Octroi is a whole different thing as well. And what that causes us is a lot of time lost and a lot of cost that a company has to occur to go from one state to the other and basically the state is trying to find ways to ensure that they secure their taxation revenue because sales tax or VAT is a strict subject so they kind of want to check every truck entering the state. What are you carrying, who is it for, if it’s getting sold , is it being sold, on paper or the goods disappear?
A truck moving to Delhi to Mumbai for example, might actually get physically checked 5 or 6 times during the 1400km journey.
Rob:
And how long would it actually take to deliver from Mumbai to Delhi?
Rubal:
You could have delivery anywhere from two days to 20 days depending on what kind of service provider you are using.
Rob:
So actually, maintaining customer service level must be really hard?
Rubal:
It is, it is a very very complicated requirements of the customer have. The customer feels that ‘hey look! You guys are set, get this thing done.’ But in India, truck do get high jacked, truck do fall into the river because of the bridges brake after 30kms Rose. Unfortunately, a lot of customers are not getting outside of their cocoon which is office to home and back without realising how complex the matter is across the entire country.
Rob:
And your company operates nationally right across India, warehousing and transport.
Rubal:
Over 600 locations. 600 physical offices but we catered all every square of India.
Rob:
I really appreciate sharing with that with us and it’s great to hear some of the challenges, I’m not great that you have those challenges but it’s interesting in what you have to face.”
Other interviews from this event include: