India must develop its own robotics, sensors and artificial intelligence tools tailored to domestic conditions to reduce dependence on imported cold-chain technology, according to a new knowledge report released today by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Grant Thornton Bharat. The findings were presented at the third edition of FICCI's Gatishakti Summit. It says that logistics costs in India have reduced to 7.9 percent of GDP.
The report, Transforming India's Logistics Ecosystem: Warehousing, Cold Chain and Role of Technology, argues that a national R&D centre for cold-chain automation would mark a decisive shift from capacity creation to system effectiveness- the central challenge now confronting India's logistics sector. While the country has made measurable progress in reducing logistics costs from an estimated 13-14 per cent of GDP to approximately 7.9 per cent, the report identifies indigenous technology development as the next frontier of competitiveness.
India currently hosts 8,815 cold storage facilities with a combined capacity of 402.18 lakh metric tonnes, yet post-harvest losses in fruits and vegetables remain stubbornly high, ranging from 6 to 15 per cent. The report attributes this not to a lack of infrastructure alone, but to insufficient automation, fragmented supply-chain planning and limited integration of intelligent systems across storage and transport nodes. A domestically anchored R&D capability, the report contends, would lower capital expenditure, drive energy-efficient cold-chain models and reduce the country's vulnerability to global technology supply chains.
The call for indigenous innovation was reinforced by senior policymakers and industry leaders at the summit. Anita Praveen, Chairperson of the Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority, India's electronic negotiable warehousing receipt system, as "the ultimate low-hanging fruit" for expanding government storage capacity through private participation, arguing that farmers storing produce in registered warehouses could access pledge financing against their receipts rather than resorting to distress sales at harvest. On the broader policy convergence now underway, she was direct: "The ground reality is clear - the infrastructure is ready, the digital tools are in place, and the policy framework is converging."
Anshuman Singh, Co-Chair of the FICCI Committee on Logistics and Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of IndoSpace, placed the R&D imperative within the broader context of an infrastructure surge. India currently has 500 million square feet of logistics parks, of which 250 million square feet is in Grade-A organised space built over 25 years. Singh projected that the next five years alone logistics parks would grow to more than 1000 million square feet of space, driven by the PM Gati Shakti programme, the National Logistics Policy and the Multimodal Logistics Parks initiative. He also noted that the government's ₹33,660 crore Bhavya Yojana - to establish 100 plug-and-play logistics parks - would accelerate logistics park development through public-private partnership, adding this would lead to “India becoming infrastructure independent.”
Pankaj Kumar, Joint Secretary at the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, while acknowledging that India’s logistics cost fell close to 8 per cent of GDP in recent years, noted that it is only one component of efficiency; resilience, sustainability, and stakeholder outcomes matter equally. He identified integration as a critical missing link. The JS called on industry to use the PM Gati Shakti portal - now open to the public for project planning - as a whole-of-government framework for networked, integrated infrastructure, rather than treating it merely as a GIS portal.
Pali Tripathi, Co-Chair of the FICCI Committee on Logistics and Chief Executive Officer of Taabi Mobility, identified last-mile execution as the sector's most persistent bottleneck. "The next phase is about enabling faster, coordinated action across the ecosystem," Tripathi argued. The shift from data availability to data velocity - and from isolated insights to integrated decision-making across ports, warehouses and multimodal networks - would define India's logistics trajectory in the years ahead.
Rajat Kumar Saini, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation, underscored that infrastructure investment must be matched by workforce formalisation, regulatory reform and skill development.
The FICCI-Grant Thornton Bharat report frames indigenous cold-chain automation as indispensable to that trajectory, and to India's larger ambition of building a globally competitive, climate-resilient logistics ecosystem ahead of Viksit Bharat 2047.