Having inaugurated its largest fulfilment centre in India, Flipkart is all set to provide direct employment to at least 11,000 people in and around Haringhata, near Kolkata, West Bengal.
This tech-enabled facility will also employ thousands of people indirectly, supporting about 20,000 sellers from West Bengal and the North-East region of the country.
Located 50 kms from Kolkata, the facility, which was built over a period of two years, has an integrated supply chain management spread across 110 acres.
Equipped with the latest technologies, the facility has a total built-up area of two million square feet and storage capacity of five million cubic feet.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her confidence that the facility “will significantly contribute to the economic development of the region and its citizens and also set new benchmarks in the industry for the development of sustainable and technology–enabled warehousing infrastructure in the country”.
The facility offers automated storage and retrieval, robotic packaging arms, cross belt sorters, and a 9 km long network conveyor belt to reduce turnaround time by 35 to 50 per cent in the movement of shipments.
The fulfilment centre has been given a Platinum rating by the Indian Green Buildings Council (IGBC), under the new warehouse category of the IGBC Green Logistics Parks and Warehouses Rating System that takes into account reduced carbon emissions, enhanced energy and water savings, rainwater harvesting, resource management, biodiversity protection, optimised lead time, enhanced storage space utilisation, better health and well-being of occupants, and higher productivity of the workforce.
Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO, Flipkart Group, reiterates, “A strong supply chain is a backbone for connecting lakhs of small and large businesses, and as a homegrown e-commerce marketplace, we are committed to investing in infrastructure, technology and talent to unlock this opportunity for the country’s economic growth”.
Minister for Industry, Commerce and Enterprise Partha Chatterjee, Government of West Bengal, admits that, “Flipkart has been a long-standing partner to the state in driving economic prosperity through its investments in supply chain infrastructure, people and technology”.
