Hyderabad: With Hyderabad and India marching ahead in providing treatment solutions for Covid-19, both in the form of drugs and vaccines, LogisticsNow, a Logistics Intelligence Platform, which aims to drive efficiency in transportation by providing data insights at route-level, is forging ties with the manufacturers, cold chain providers and governments.
India today is estimated to have about 20,000 reefer containerised trucks, of which roughly 10-15 per cent (about 2,000-3,000) may be suitable for vaccine transportation in the frozen temperature category. Several players have added or in the process of adding over 500 reefer trucks in anticipation of the vaccine development and demand.
‘Reefer containers’ is a short name for refrigerated containers – one of the six types of shipping containers used in freight forwarding, which function as large fridges that can control the temperature of their cargo, making them ideal for transporting goods such as pharmaceuticals and vaccines.
With proper planning and design of an end-to-end supply chain, this capacity should be sufficient for vaccine distribution. However, the strategy and approach for vaccinating various parts of the country and segments of the population might make this a far more complex supply chain, which could result in temporary shortages, while this supply chain is being set-up.
LogisticsNow founder & CEO Raj Saxena told Telangana Today, “Central government is drawing up a detailed plan for vaccine distribution across the county. On the other hand, we are engaged with the vaccine manufacturers to understand their distribution and delivery needs.”
“We are leveraging our platform and reaching out to the major stakeholders in the cold chain ecosystem to understand how we can assist in the immunisation. We are currently in talks with vaccine makers, reefer providers and syringe makers,” he added.
Hyderabad-registered and Mumbai-headquartered LogisticsNow’s LoRRI platform already has over 50 reefer logistics companies including TCI Cold Chain, Snowman, DHL, and Coldrush onboarded along with their capacities.
This will help governments and vaccine makers to look at reefer capacities at a zonal, local and lane level as the vaccine distribution is planned and provide data-driven metrics on aspects such as the capacity, service and cost, added Saxena.
Given the essential nature of pharmaceuticals and vaccines, Hyderabad has seen and will continue to see a rise in trucking volumes driven by Covid-19 and seasonal factors.
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