ASSOCHAM has mooted a proposal to the Transport and Shipping Ministry for introducing the "freight village" concept on the line of European model that takes the clustering of related logistics activities to a new level.

In a note submitted to the Minister, Nitin Gadkari, ASSOCHAM said Freight villages are logistics concentration points, which are developed at strategic locations to provide various logistics-related activities such as warehousing, packing, re-packing, break-bulk centre, and truck parking.

In Europe, the chamber says freight villages are typically a private sector business, developed by large scale operators that host complimentary services and related operators.

Freight villages are often operated under public private partnership mode, where an area is defined as a freight village by the public sector usually at the intersection of major multimode routes, and then private sector operators develop the facilities. Freight villages can vary in size, from few hectares to thousands of hectares, depending on their functions.

Currently no such facilities exist in India. As a result, the surroundings of the larger cities are congested with on the rise disorganied parking and waiting areas. With an ever growing truck fleet, the situation is more worrying than ever before. Long stretches of roads leading into cities or circumvallation roads around them have de facto been turned into truck queuing and waiting areas.

In parallel, unlicensed workshops, service facilities and spare parts outlets have emerged in such areas. ASSOCHAM further says this combines with a widespread lack of metropolitan regulations (or enforcement when these exist) on specific timings for trucks to load, unload and circulate inside metropolitan areas, contributing to traffic jams and pollution.

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