It is proud moments for me to join as MD of a Miniratna Schedule "A" corporation, CWC, which is continuously giving dividend to shareholders, since inception (1957). It has sound business streams, PAN India level diversified facilities and competent & committed manpower. With its core strength in the field of scientific warehousing, CWC is very well serving the growing need of Indian economy. It is operating in highly competitive service sector, lately though shifting from monopolistic to free market economics. Type of warehousing facilities required by 2050 will be different from 1950. About 60% of India's population will live in cities by 2050 compared to 31% as per 2011 census and number of million plus cities will cross 100 marks. India is vying to become the number one economy on GDP (PPP) basis, in the world by 2050. Our logistics cost (13% of GDP) & Logistics Performance Index (35) are on higher side compared to logistics cost of developed countries (8% of GDP). Farmers' income & liquidity require boost, as 58% of population still depend on agricultural income. Warehousing is the smallest part of logistic value chain, but it stores commodities for the longest period of supply chain responsibility. Food grain cannot bear high logistics cost of procurement, storage, transportation and distribution, because its weight to volume ratio is unfavourable for transport and it is price sensitive commodity. So, CWC mustposition itself to meet the demand of trade & industry atlower logistics cost.

CWC's turnover has been about Rs.1600 crores for the past few years, wherein warehousing & market facilitation charges contribute 85% and rest 15% come from CFS/ICD, CRT, ICP, PCS, interest and dividend income. The 1st Quarter of F.Y. 2018-19 has shown some improvement in the storage space utilization after the major repair of the non-operational warehouses in the last three years. Our endeavour should be to make all warehouses fully functional and world class, to be the 1st choice of Govt & private customers, for the storage of agricultural produce, FMCG, Industrial goods, E-commerce, open stock yard, cold chain (controlled atmosphere & temperature), distribution logistics, etc.

CWC must organically grow, for better utilization of scarce & costly land & space, by adding more warehouses, silos, mezzanine floors, high rise warehouse, perishable cargo centres, private freight terminals, etc. CWC must have strategic tie-ups with non-competing partners, particularly, Govt. organizations and PSUs (airport, railway, port &highway) for economy of scale and capitalizing on transport infrastructure being created through Bhartmala, Sagarmala, Dedicated Freight Corridor and other growth drivers, like, GST, warehousing hubs, primary locations & facilitation centres, DMIC & AKMIC, freight village & other MMLPs, manufacturing thrust (Make-in-India) for achieving above 30% share in GDP by 2030, E-Commerce, exports, etc. Transportation of domestic cargo, particularly food grain by double stack dwarf container under electrified section of railway and coastal shipping, setting up silos & warehouse under PEGS (about 250 LMT), etc, will change the whole dynamics of warehouse location, size and numbers. CWC must tune as per the continuously changing canvas as well as embrace customer value creation ethos, to attract additional commodities for storage. CWC must cater service/quality, time and price sensitivity of customers. We must ensure & improve equity of all stakeholders, particularly, staff & customer by making use of modern tools, like, E-governance for paperless office working, real-time distributed decision making, WMS/DOS, digital marketing (web-based continuous visibility/monitoring of customer) for tapping potential customers and online booking of storage space, mechanised/automated handling of cargo, etc.

Let us pledge and join hands together to develop our core competency & commitment for the growth of CWC. Let us confront issues plaguing warehousing sector and be passionate about CWC and what we are doing here. Let us eliminate class distinctions & align all forces (management, culture, manpower, financial interest & technology) to become the best warehousing service provider. Lets us be focused, like, Lord Arjuna, on our customers & the single most important economic denominator, "profit per ton of storage". Let us make "warehouse for everyone, a reality".