akash bansal
An astute professional with diversified experience in managing supply chains and logistics across various industry verticals, Akash Bansal, Country HeadLogistics, Om Logistics has successfully delivered multifunctional tactical and strategic assignments. In an extensive interview with Ritika Arora Bhola, the expert talks about India's enormous potential to become a manufacturing hub, if methodical and instictive approaches for growth are nurtured.
K
indly share with us the challenges that you faced during this crisis and how did you cope up with it? There had been challenges, and being a logistics service provider, closure of state borders for a long period of time posed a major challenge for us. During the lockdown, different states followed different rules. While few states allowed cargo movement by trucks, few restricted. As the enormity of the pandemic was huge and the situation was critical, despite the necessary permissions from respective state aut hor it ie s, mov i ng cargo to the destination was not possible at times. We understand the challenges of the authorities, and looking at the current
Safe, seamless and timely cargo delivery is our unwavering focus situation, supports the decision of closer of the borders. The government on their part had been supportive in understanding the problems faced by logistics service providers and had continuously been providing solutions for overcoming the same. The responsiveness from the administrating authorities had been great. 40 |
July 2020
Capacity utilisation was another challenge. In the initial period of lockdown, the vehicle capacity utilisation was only 10 per cent which is now gradually improving to an average of 35 to 40 per cent, againt pre-lockdown utilisation. This was typical for all organisations, and we can proudly say that we have overcome the challenges. The only existing challenge which
we still see is availability of trained manpower/truck drivers. Millions of immigrants have moved back to their hometowns during the lockdown. We are currently working with lesser manpower. I think it will take another two to three months for the situation to normalise. Wee will then be in a position to say that we have gained back the adequate manpower.