New Delhi
Sohan Lal Commodity Management (SLCM Group), India’s leading post-harvest management group, announced on March 22 the receipt of the ‘Patent Certificate’ from the Patent Office of the Government of India for its application titled “Methods for Real-Time Data Management” filed on December 16, 2013. SLCM Group is the only company in the Indian agriculture sector that has registered a technology patent in the agri-logistics (warehousing) segment till date.
Since Independence, the agriculture sector has been growing at a steady pace but till date the grain warehouses of India have posted a 10 per cent loss of grains stored. This loss has been attributed to various factors like archaic storage systems, lack of infrastructure, ignorance of scientific methods etc.
Commenting on this momentous achievement, Sandeep Sabharwal, Chief Executive Officer, SLCM Group, said, “Observing the increasing pace of technology penetration, I had the vision of ‘phygitalizing’ the warehouse management system over a decade ago. With a dedicated team of professionals, we created ‘Agri Reach’ – a system that enables effective warehousing solutions agnostic of infrastructure, geography and crops.”
“With a firm belief in our innovation and a passion to improve Indian agriculture, we applied for the patent nine years ago. Today, it gives me immense pleasure to say that our patent application has received its accreditation from the Government of India. This brings us one step closer to revolutionizing agriculture at the ground level,” Sabharwal added.
Agri Reach, SLCM Group’s proprietary solution, allows real-time monitoring and management of crops. Under the umbrella, the invention offers a diverse set of services such as audit receipts, quality control, and surveillance. This helps agriculture experts to maintain the health of stored crops and ensure optimum quality using a series of processes, audits, and real-time tracking of the facilities.
Agri Reach is capable of establishing industry-standard warehouse operations anywhere across the country within 24 hours.
The impact of Agri Reach implementation across the business verticals of SLCM Group has resulted in remarkable growth. In 2017, SLCM Group was handling Assets Under Management (AUM) worth Rs 1010.9 crore per day. In comparison to this, the current outstanding AUM handled by the company per day has a net worth of INR 5322.75 Crore (as of March 20, 2022).
Addressing the scalability potential, Sabharwal added, “Warehousing represents the granaries of Agriculture and Agri Reach has the ability to transform agri storage across India. According to a study conducted by FICCI, Agri Reach can reduce post-harvest losses from 10% to 0.5%. By virtue of these numbers, Agri Reach can enable the Indian agriculture industry save over $13bn per annum.”
Apart from this, SLCM Group is currently working on various other technologies that have the capability to enable the efficient integration of physical infrastructure with digitized enterprises, thereby strengthening the foundation of ‘phygital’ agriculture supply chain.