Arshiya International Ltd. (BSE: 506074), a leading global supply chain services company has been awarded the license to run container freight trains on a pan India basis by Indian Railways. With this Arshiya International Ltd. would be able to link its various Free Trade Warehousing Zones and Container Freight Stations across India for rapid movement of freight. 

Announcing this today, Mr. Ajay Mittal, Chairman – Arshiya International Ltd., said, “With the awarding of this license, we will be able to provide integrated end to end supply chain services using the railway network and thus bringing in greater efficiency and major cost advantage to our customers”.

Arshiya had earmarked Rs 350 to 425 crores for setting up the railway links, of which the 1^st phase would incur an investment of Rs 125 to 175 crores, which will go towards acquiring rakes and building other infrastructure to support the same. The phase one of the project is expected to be complete by 2009.

Arshiya has a target to set up a total of six more warehouses in the next five years, out of which one will be in overseas and five other in different regions of India. This will help cover the entire geography of India. Mr. Mittal also announced that Arshiya has further chalked out promising plans to use this railway infrastructure in India in near future.

Indian Railways had opened up container train operations to private sector in 2006. Arshiya had earlier committed an investment of Rs 3000 crore in two phases for setting up FTWZ’s in JNPT, & Noida-Delhi and Oman. FTWZs are special category special economic zones, which enjoy tax incentives.

Each FTWZ is of almost 200 acres each and with this granting of license to run container trains, Arshiya has achieved a major step towards the development of Supply Chain Management infrastructure in India.

Sourced From: Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide