India's Lockdown : Logistics Woes

Last week saw few unprecedented actions being taken around the globe, which has resulted in almost 1/3^rd of the global population under lockdown currently. Amongst other lockdowns, a hugely critical one has been lockdown imposed upon 1.35 Billion people overnight in India at a very the initial stage in the spread of virus compared to other places.

A lot of countries over the globe are still contemplating the thought and consequences of lockdown and have declared lockdown as the last resort. Countries like the USA with Donald Trump’s U-Turn overlocking down New York post strong opposition from New York governor labeling it as “Anti-American”. India, on the other hand, announced a nation-wide lockdown within a 4 hour period, with the economy open for essential service. The large scale lockdown has brought about challenges which other nations can learn from.

Indian Government has approved for Round-the-clock for 3 months but there has been a major issue with the implementation. The sudden lockdown has resulted in clogging of ports and airports with non-essentials, with agents and brokers unable to turn up due to the unavailability of transportation. Custom Officers say it has become difficult to clear essential items due to the stock of non-essential items overflowing at the warehouses as they aren’t getting picked up. The Indian goverment had been swift to take action and understand the scenario, with issue of 1st addendum allowing for transportation of all goods, without distinction of essential or non-essentials.

Some figures prior to the addendum notably show the difference, under normal circumstances about 75% of air cargo would get cleared in 72 hours, whereas about 50% cargo was taking more than 3 days. At Mumbai and Delhi, the number of consignments getting cleared in less than 48 hours were down 22 and 40 percent respectively. Kolkata had been the highest affected with a fall of 66% for shipments under 48 hours. As for the sea, 45 percent of consignments were getting cleared in less than 48 hours; 50 percent were taking more than 72 hours.

According to many officials, the announcement of lockdown lacked the practicality for implementation, despite the clearance being open throughout the day, the issue has been picking of cargo post that due to logistics unavailability. The implementation flaw could have lead to delay in terms of essentials throughout the nation with, also affecting imports of ventilators, pharmaceuticals and test kits. With the cases globally on the rise and the curve beginning to spike up, India's quick action to resolve the issue is a great example to portray the flexible approach which goverments should be taking if they look forward to implement strict measures.