Atmanirbhar Bharat's container quandary: Where India needs to tick the right boxes, and urgently
Box building was a monopoly of the Americans and the Japanese till China toppled them in the early 1990s.
Synopsis
India has run into a severe shortage of steel boxes — a key lifeline of global trade — at a time when its exports were just about picking up again after prolonged Covid disruptions. India can go for Atmanirbharta in box building, but building steel boxes to bridge the current shortage may turn out to be a bad business call.
Jai Agarwal, director of Agra-based Kajeco Industries, has been trying to explain to European and Australian buyers that he has no control over the rise in the prices of iron pipes, manhole covers and garden furniture that his foundry casts. Agarwal also has no control over the delay in delivering his products to those overseas buyers.Khalid Khan, director of Geeco Trading Corporation in Mumbai, has had to rollover his consignment of auto parts