India’s cold storage capacity stands at 226.7 lakh tonnes

The logistics and warehousing sector in the country has attracted $7.2 billion investment in the past two years, thanks to the emergence of global online retail giants and widespread expansion across value chains.

The largest of these is the $3-billion corpus set aside by the National Investment Infrastructure Fund to buy or sponsor a port and logistics related projects in India through DP World (DPW). Allianz has also allocated $1 billion in e-Shang Redwood (ESR) to develop warehousing space in eight major cities across the country, according to data compiled by the CARE Ratings.

These investments are planned mainly to cater to services such as single or multi brand retail. Online giants such as Walmart, Amazon, Flipkart, IKEA, and other large retail format stores have set up their warehousing facilities near ports or markets to facilitate quick delivery of goods to consumers. These warehouses have modern infrastructure and amenities to service both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors.

Apart from that there were number of demand enablers which prompted many global private equity (PE) firms to invest in the domestic warehousing and logistics sector.