Integrated logistics hub Freight Village to come up in DMIC’s Haryana node

A state-of-the-art Freight Village, that integrates core logistics infrastructure with a host of allied services to make logistics operations faster, cheaper and more efficient, is being developed in Haryana under the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, recently gave its approval for the development of trunk infrastructure components at the Integrated Multi Modal Logistics Hub, known as Freight Village, proposed over 886.78 acre at Nangal Chaudhary in Haryana’s Mahendragarh district. It comes within the Manesar Bawal Investment Region (MBIR) that has been identified as one of the eight nodes for development in Phase-I of DMIC. The trunk infrastructure development at an estimated cost of Rs 1,852 crore will be taken up in two phases by DMIC Haryana Multi Modal Logistic Hub Project, a special purpose vehicle incorporated as a 50:50 JV between the Government of India through NICDIT and Government of Haryana through HSIDC, for implementing the project. The CCEA has given a financial sanction of Rs 1029.49 crore for the development of Phase-I, which is expected to be completed by 2020-21, and in-principle approval for Phase-II of the project, which is estimated to generate over 4,000 direct and 6,000 indirect jobs. According to Alkesh Sharma, CEO and Managing Director, DMIDC, “The Freight Village will be far more than a conventional terminal offering, in addition to the standard container handling activities, a number of essential auxiliary services such as warehouses, office spaces, groupage activities, customs, maintenance workshops, insurance, banking and other services.” It is intended as a single-point solution to all logistics need like loading, aggregation, packaging and storage with value added services, including real-time freight tracking and data analysis. “We want to bring the employment and efficiency benefits of such a facility across the entire logistics supply chain. The end-result will be an enormous boost to the economy in terms of exports increase, reduced fuel and transportation costs, lower pollution, faster operations, last mile connectivity from ports to the hinterlands and much more,” Sharma said. The proposed Freight Village is has many strategic advantages; it will be connected to the upcoming Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) about 10 km away in Dabla, and to the NH-148B to the east. Haryana is a major industrial and trading hub that is expected to see container traffic rise to about 1 million twenty foot equivalent unit (TEUs) by 2025. The hub could be an attractive destination for businesses across various categories including freight companies, warehousing and logistics operators. Once linked to the DFC, the Freight Village will have direct high-speed connectivity to the ports and other key industrial centres and the capacity to efficiently cater to the increasing freight traffic across the region.