CMD Kalyana Rama aims to increase Container Corp's market share to 80%

Container Corporation of India (Concor), a subsidiary of the Indian Railways, already has 75 per cent market share in the container segment. It is looking to increase it, through aggressive marketing strategies. Its new chairman and managing director (CMD), V Kalyana Rama shares expansion plans and the need for multi-model transport integration, with Shine Jacob. Edited excerpts:
 
How are you looking at the multi-model logistic requirements in the country?
 
The country requires all modes of logistic transport — roads, railway, and water. Now, these modes are competing with each other. Slowly, integration will come. All our multi-model logistic parks are designed around this.

 

We are going for coastal transport as well; a tender is out for that. I will take exclusive operators for vessels. As of now, we have asked for two vessels in the west coast, with cargo capacity of 100 twenty-foot equivalent (TEU), each.
 
We will be scaling up very fast. There is huge demand in this segment
 
About 20 years ago, the railway was carrying 500 million tonne (mt). Now, they are talking about 1,180 mt. What infrastructure addition has happened for the railway in this time?
 
Dedicated freight corridors will come up by 2022, providing additional capacity of 400 mt.

 
What road map do you have to cater to this demand?
 
My target is to raise our market share to 80 per cent. We expect to double turnover to Rs120 billion in three years, and touch Rs240 billion in five. (Currently, it is Rs61.67 billion.) Our compounded annual growth rate is 12 per cent.
 
Till 2022, we have a capital expenditure plan of Rs60-80 billion.
 
We shall procure a lot of rolling stocks. This year, we are planning to have around 32 rakes. At present, we have 325 rakes. This will be increased to 556 by 2022.

 
Recently, you captured headlines because of the aggressive marketing technique of allowing 45-day free storage in your facilities. What is the reason for this?
 
We did this to make doing business easy for all our customers. So, the customer is at the centre of this decision.
 
Concor has a pan-Indian presence. Wherever a customer is, they should have a similar experience. Through this, we have standardised our services.
 
Thanks to such measures, our market share has increased in the past two years by 2 per cent. This, with a higher base of 72.3 per cent to 74.4 per cent, is not a small thing.

 
As far as the 45-day free storage decision is concerned, when customers are satisfied, I will be able to attract more traffic. Concor is a commercial organisation. As its CMD, I took a bold decision.
 
What response are you getting from consumers?
 
We are getting a very positive response.
 
We have taken many other marketing measures recently. Customers are now able to track their containers continuously. We are improving handling in our terminal. We have improved infrastructure facilities in all our warehouses — including multi-level staging and brand new equipment.
 
Things are going to change rapidly in the segment. After three to five years, there will be no storage of containers. It will be storage of cargo and value addition to cargo.

 
Can you tell us about your plans to expand capacity?
 
We have a target of being present in 100 locations by 2020. Now, we have a presence in 83 locations. Of the 100, 90 will be ours and 10 will be with partners.
 
Recently, we signed an agreement with the Central Warehousing Corporation for working out a container freight station at Pipavav.
 
My thrust area will be containers — cargo accumulation, distribution, etc.
 
In the domestic market also, we see good growth. Last year, we grew 18 per cent; this year also we have good demand. We are looking at new things such as distribution logistics.

 
In the long-term, we shall have 20 warehousing centres, with a total area of 15 million sqft, in private partnership. We shall be coming out with a tender soon. Most investment will come from private players.