UNI

NEW DELHI, October 31 2005 00:00 IST: The industry in India, particularly the manufacturing sector can sustain a 10-15 per cent growth if supply chain development keeps pace with the desire and the developments in the manufacturing sector.

This was the view expressed by Jamshyd Godrej, chairman and managing director, Godrej and Boyce Manufacturing Company, and echoed by other industry leaders who participated at the logistics 2005 being organised by CII in Mumbai from October 27-29, 2005.

A resurgent Indian manufacturing sector is today, constrained by the supply chain bottlenecks and cost escalations owing to it, he said.

According to Cyrus Guzder, chairman, CII National Council on Transportation and Logistics, weak transport infrastructure is holding back the development of the logistics industry, and thereby acting as a roadblock to the nation's progress.

Stressing the role of proper infrastructure, H R Srinivasan, chairman, logistics summit 2005 and vision holder, take Solutions Ltd pointed out that with logistics costs being substantial part of product cost in India, the role of infrastructure and optimisation of its use with existing systems is key to logistics effectiveness.

Responding to the concerns of industry on the lack of proper infrastructure, the advisor to the deputy chairman, planning commission, said that the government is actively trying to bring all the infrastructure sectors authorities together, for greater synergy and sharing of knowledge.

He went on to say that this was a very large and complex exercise, but hopefully, it would yield results soon.

Almost to supplement this point, Ravi Budhiraja, chairman, JNPT mentioned that in the near future there would be 30 per cent spare capacity in the Port infrastructure of the country, which would be in keeping with international practices of creating capacity before demand.

Speaking at the summit, Cedric Foo, deputy president, NOL group, Singapore, said that land side evacuation of Indian ports were very poor resulting in inadequate utilisation of the country's Port infrastructure. He said that there is urgent need for the road and rail network to align with the port infrastructure.

Putting a context to the deliberations on ''logistics effectiveness: role of infrastructure and supply chain innovations,'' Guzder mentioned that Indian is today being promoted as the ''destination future'' by logistics service providers all over the world.

He added that Indian players are also getting into position in different ways by providing a wide spectrum of logistics services, though it is being held back owing to congestion, over regulation, fragmentation, and weak transport infrastructure.