DPIIT developing warehouse, cold-chain grading standards with ADB: Joint Secretary

New Delhi: The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), is developing a benchmark framework for grading and rating warehouses and cold-chain facilities to improve quality standards and facilitate easier access to incentives and credit.

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Speaking at FICCI’s third Logistics, Warehousing and Cold Chain Summit, DPIIT Joint Secretary Pankaj Kumar said the Government is yet to decide on the regulatory structure for the proposed rating system, with options including oversight by a government agency or a self-regulatory mechanism led by industry bodies.

Kumar said graded facilities could benefit from better access to financial support and incentives. The initiative follows the recent release of two sets of warehouse standards and guidelines by DPIIT.

He added that DPIIT is also working with state governments to integrate warehousing and cold-chain infrastructure into state logistics policies and city logistics plans, covering warehouses, dark stores and cold storage facilities.

The logistics division of DPIIT is simultaneously preparing guidelines for multimodal logistics parks (MMLPs), where warehousing and cold-chain assets account for nearly 70 percent of the total area. The proposed framework is expected to encourage value-added services such as packaging, labelling, redistribution and digitalisation.

Highlighting the growing role of warehouse-based financing, Shanti Lal Jain, Member, Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA), said commodities worth about Rs 12,419 crore were pledged against electronic negotiable warehouse receipts (e-NWRs) in the previous year, marking a 43 per cent increase. Loans against e-NWRs also rose by 43 per cent to around Rs 5,700 crore.

During the first five months of the current financial year, commodity pledges have already exceeded Rs 6,000 crore, while loans have crossed Rs 3,000 crore. The government has set a lending target of Rs 8,000 crore for the year, implying an annual growth of about 40 percent.

Jain said around 7,800 warehouses with a combined storage capacity of nearly 6 crore metric tonnes are currently registered with WDRA, accounting for about 30 percent of the country’s total warehousing capacity. The regulator has expanded the list of notified commodities to 246, including food grains, pulses, oilseeds, spices, horticultural produce, cash crops and select non-agricultural commodities, with 61 commodities added in the last year alone.

Emphasising the importance of scientific storage infrastructure, Jain said registered warehouses closer to farm gates can help farmers avoid distress sales and improve access to institutional finance through government-backed credit guarantees.

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States are also intensifying efforts to attract logistics investments. Anisha Shrivastav, Executive Director, Madhya Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation (MPIDC), said the state’s Logistics Policy 2025 offers incentives of up to 30 per cent on fixed capital investment for projects developed on land parcels of 25 acres or more, along with support of up to Rs 5 crore for external infrastructure development.

She said Madhya Pradesh has already developed a 255-acre multimodal logistics park in Indore under the public-private partnership model and earmarked an additional 110 acres in Jabalpur for future logistics infrastructure.

Addressing structural challenges, Sachin Bhanushali, Advisor, FICCI Committee on Logistics and former CEO of Gateway Rail Freight, said road freight movement in India averages only 15–20 km per hour from origin to destination, while rail logistics also face efficiency constraints due to first- and last-mile connectivity gaps.

He said high logistics transit times compel companies to maintain larger inventories compared with developed economies and stressed that future industrial estates should be integrated with rail-linked multimodal logistics parks.

The summit also witnessed the release of two reports — a FICCI-PwC study titled "Redefining Warehousing with AI Driven Transformation" and a FICCI-GT report titled "India’s Cold Chain – From Storage to a Chain."

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