Top 5 challenges faced by logistics sector during the lockdown period in India
The huge exodus of migrants from various cities in India has resulted in the non-availability of labor in both large industries and MSMEs. This has also affected the availability of truck drivers resulting in a key challenge to meet demand for essential items during the lockdown period in India due to the corona virus pandemic. While there has been some improvement in the transportation of goods when relaxations were announced at various stages, the situation remains far from normal.
The logistics and transportation services is a critical component in this fight against the pandemic as it plays a significant role in the supply and delivery of essential goods and medicine to mitigate the complete impact of lockdown and enable us to effectively deal with this unreasonable war against humanity. Goods transport simply put is the movement of goods from destination A to B, but the entire supply chain process is not that simple. It needs the expertise to know the right inventory of essential goods and their need at various locations in the right amounts in proper condition.
While the non-availability of the truck drivers remains a critical issue since most of them have left for their hometowns or have been staying at homes to protect themselves from the virus, there are few other challenges that the industry is facing paving the way for the need to develop bigger innovations in technology terms during the challenging times. Here is the list of top challenges the logistics industry is facing amid the lockdown in India:
- Regulations by the government: There were a host of regulations that were announced by the union government for the lockdown period. The economy came to a grinding halt barring the transportation of essential goods. However, it was not very clear in the initial days on which goods come under essentials category. The list of essentials was announced gradually as we entered the lockdown.
- Truck driver shortage: The retention of existing drivers has become a big issue as most of them were a part of the migrant exodus fearing lack of work. Hiring new drivers too has become a challenge due to their non-availability
- Cost of transportation: The chaos created gaps in the availability of manpower resulting in the surge in demand of labor for movement of goods. This pent-up demand for manpower subsequently resulted in the higher cost of hiring. Added to this, the hike in excise duty of fuel by the union government and the related hike in VAT by various state governments led to higher fuel cost giving rise to short-term inflation due to higher cost of transportation.
- Economy: The declining demand for goods and services gave rise to credit crisis in the country together with inflationary demands that took a heavy toll in the economy. India is paying a heavier economic price during the lockdown than many other countries due to the large internal consumption that drastically declined giving rise to job cuts catapulting in bigger unemployment rate. The extension of lockdown by the government will sharply cut down India’s GDP for the current year with a poor forecast for the next financial year. While the opening up of the economy is currently taking place phase wise, the lockdown might get stretched to August.
- Inadequate customer service: Due to technology enabled logistics, the customers want full transparency from the transporter with regards to the delivery schedules. As their expectations have increased, the customer service remains poor during the lockdown due to the poor visibility in the last mile delivery. There is inability to strike a balance between prompt operations and quick deliveries as some of the available truck drivers are not trained to provide real-time location on GPS resulting in poor customer service.
As the industrial and trading activities have slowly started to open up due to the relaxations in the lockdown, the social distancing protocols followed by these companies have reduced the manpower at manufacturing and distribution hubs that has led to a host of goods being stranded due to poor handling capabilities. Long distance Truck drivers too are scared to drive on the highways for the fear of being arrested since different states have different regulations placed as India is a federal structure.
However, our ability to learn when are hit hardest and bounce back stronger than before is the virtue that is keeping us going with deep enthusiasm. Post COVID world will usher in a new era with many technology innovations and adjustments for supply chain and transporters in particular to provide a robust logistics paradigm that is resilient to all circumstances in future.
Article Source – https://dashburst.com/trukor/boards/trukor
