With comprehensive supply chain warehouses in five major port cities of the country, Poddar Global is the sole supplier of a premium range of imported newsprint brands to almost all leading newspapers based in India. The company has strategically set its countrywide chain of warehouses catering newsprint to remotest geographies, for example, Imphal in Manipur. Besides Delhi, the company has warehouses in Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Cochin and Visakhapatnam (Vizag).

The ET Logistics Awards is aimed at recognising excellent services in terms of setting a benchmark in the logistics industry and inspiring companies to perform up to their maximum level to compete at the international level, and to improve service to make ‘Make In India’ dream come true.

The awards presentation ceremony saw the industry stalwarts, along with port authorities, investors, developers, operators, users, service providers and key players connected with the industry came together on one platform.

The awards were presented in 22 different categories.

Poddar’s winning strategies
Founded by senior journalist, Ram Karan Poddar, the overall commitment of Poddar Global is to bring a constant ‘progression’ to the printed newspaper industry of the country. Today, the company is run by his son Sunil Poddar, who believes in broadening the horizon through ‘partners in progress’ model.

How does Poddar Global deliver newsprint to clients? The imported consignments of newsprint are first harboured at the respective port warehouses, any of the five. Then the clearing agents, on behalf of Poddar Global, transport the materials on a 40-feet container to the stockroom of the client. As a unique benefit, Poddar Global offers ACP (Accredited Client Programme) to its clients. ACP is a special status allotted to the company by the ministry of finance, Government of India, to allow free movement of containers directly from the ports to ‘custom-bonded areas’ in their respective regional warehouses.

The ‘custom bonded area’ is an especially designated zone allotted in every warehouse of Poddar Global and it is set up particularly to provide customers an added storage facility of their newsprint. This designated zone is useful when a newspaper orders a large volume of newsprint from Poddar Global, but they don’t have the space to store them at their facility.

The warehouses
The warehouses are designed with high ceilings under which nine newsprint stacks can be mounted. They are equipped with high-end slitting machines to trim the newsprint into sizes required by the newspaper production houses. Imported forklift machines are deployed to load and unload the newsprint stacks. More than 150 well-trained staffers are deputed in all six warehouses.

Stockpiled stacks of newsprint in the warehouses contain some of the internationally demanded quality newsprint, such as MNI (Malaysia), Volga (Russia), Holmen (Sweden), Jeonju (South Korea), Norske Skog (Australia), Catalyst Marathon (Canada) and UPM Schwedt (Germany), among others. They also contain just a little amount of glossy light-coated paper (LCP) newsprint, which are normally used for display ads/centre spreads, are stocked.

Biggest among all, the twin warehouses in Chennai occupies an area of 1.25 lakh sq/ft, which can stock 44,000 metric tonnes of newsprint at a time.

Built on an area of six acres, the Mumbai warehouse is measured approximately one lakh sq/ft and can stock 45,000 metric tonnes of newsprint. The facility is now under planning to expand to 80,000 sq/ft more for stocking an extra 30,000 metric tonnes. Some of the big names in newspapers like The Indian Express, Sakal, DNA, Dainik Bharkar, among others source newsprint from this warehouse.  

From its Kolkata warehouse, Poddar Global covers the eastern India, including the Northeast. Most regional dailies in Odisha, Assam, Nagaland and Manipur are closely associated with Poddar Global.