NEW DELHI: As the Central Warehousing Corporation celebrates its 69th Foundation Day, B.L. Verma, speaking to The New Indian, expressed appreciation for CWC’s progress since its establishment in 1957.
“From a small initiative, CWC has now grown into a massive infrastructure backbone for the country’s warehousing sector. Today, we celebrate not just its journey but also its achievements, including the prestigious Navratna status,” he said.
Highlighting the government’s focus on farmers’ welfare, he added, “From the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi to other key initiatives, all of these steps align with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for a prosperous agricultural economy. Strengthening storage infrastructure is crucial to achieving this goal.”
CWC Managing Director Santosh Sinha presented an overview of the corporation’s performance, emphasizing the modernization of warehouses in Tier-I and Tier-II cities, the development of cold storage facilities under the PPP model, and partnerships with key stakeholders.
CWC has added over 120 lakh square feet of new storage capacity in 2024-25 and is currently storing 70 lakh cotton bales and 1.90 crore bags of groundnuts. Acknowledging its superior performance, the government recently conferred ‘Navratna’ status on CWC in April 2024.
Along with Verma Union Ministers of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Nimuben Jayantibhai Bambhaniya, also attended the event and reiterated CWC’s commitment to ensuring national food security through seamless storage and supply. They highlighted the government’s decision to raise the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for all mandated Rabi crops for the 2025-26 marketing season as a significant step towards farmers’ welfare.
Sangeeta Ramrakhyani, Director HR at Central Warehouse Incorporation says on the completion of 69 years, “it was a modest beginning in the year 1957 with 7 warehouses and 7000 metric ton capacity. And today our capacity is 22 times and warehouses have increased to 100 times. So we are proud of our organization and we are diversifying our activities apart from warehousing to rail logistics also. And we are committed to reduce the logistics cost from 15% to 8 to 9% in the near future.”
“As far as HR is concerned, we have introduced quite new policies in the organization for better motivation and employee engagement and to achieve better productivity of the employees.” she added further
Elaborating on how CWC is helping India’s agriculture sector and farmers, Ramrakhyani said, “The purpose with which CWC was established was to preserve food grains and provide scientific warehousing because there was significant wastage of food grains in our country due to poor preservation. So, the government set up this organization immediately after independence in 1957. I am really proud to announce that we are carrying out this activity in a very scientific manner with a team of more than 100 technically qualified professionals. We are preserving food grains, and CWC is facilitating the government’s major food security scheme by ensuring their preservation and supply wherever required,” she said.
