Blue Dart expands to SAARC countries

Kolkata: Blue Dart, a major domestic logistics service provider, proposes to expand its operations by launching services to neighbouring countries.

A beginning has already been made with the launch of ground express services to Dhaka from here and the plans are on the anvil to start air express service with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and ground express service with Pakistan.

“With a population of 1.47 billion and SAFTA due to roll out, the SAARC countries hold out the promise of a major market which we would like to exploit more fully,” said Mr Anil Khanna, Managing Director of Blue Dart Express Ltd, here on Wednesday. “The proposed international services will be in partnerships with our parent company, DHL,” Mr Khanna said.

Acquiring Cargo carrier:

In 2008, Blue Dart will invest Rs 200 crore to add to its facilities. “This is part of the Rs 1,000-crore investment we propose to make in the next few years,” he said pointing out that there was a proposal to acquire a cargo carrier, most probably a Boeing 757, and acquire on lease additional space for warehousing purpose to have one million sq ft of space. “Right now, we have six aircraft – three each of Boeing 757s and 737s – and warehousing space of 1.5 lakh sq ft,” he said.

Report Card:

Mr Khanna sounded very bullish about the company’s performance. In the first quarter (January to March 2008) the growth was more than 30 per cent as compared with 21 per cent in 2007 and 17 per cent for the whole industry in the same year. Between January and June this year, the cargo throughput was 1,08,000 tonnes as compared to 1,92,000 tonnes in 2007.

Quoting a report, he said the size of the country’s domestic air express market was Rs 2,700 crore of which the share of the organised sector was Rs 1,260 crore and Blue Dart accounted for more than 41 per cent of it.

Kona Warehouse:

Mr Khanna also announced the launching of Blue Dart’s India-Bangladesh service by land route and commissioning of a warehouse at Kona near here. “The size of trade between India and Bangladesh, through both official and unofficial channels, currently estimated at Rs 28 billion, likely to rise to Rs 50 billion in next few years, throwing up a lot of business opportunities for us”, he added.

Mr Amod Dasgupta, Vice-President, Blue Dart, eastern region, said the Kona hub with a total covered space of 22,000 sq ft was poised to handle 80 to 85 tonnes of traffic every day. “We’ve enough space there to increase the covered area up to 50,000 sq ft depending on the growth of business,” he said.

Explaining the service to Bangladesh, he said it would be through Petrapole-Benapole land route. The DHL vans in Kolkata would carry consignments up to Petrapole border where the consignments would be unloaded, sent to Benapole across the border for re-loading into DHL Bangladesh vans for onward movement.

“Since DHL at both ends will keep the papers ready, the delay currently being experienced by the trade in the clearance of paperwork will not be there,” he observed.