Industry
officials say the crunch has not only affected manufacturing of edibles but
even of items like nozzle pumps and other goods used in packaging.

While
the Centre has kept the major ports and the airports in the country open to
allow freight movement in times of the ongoing lockdown, limited evacuation of
imported raw material to factories is creating production hurdles for FMCG
companies.
All
FMCG firms are already reeling under the pressure of manpower curbs at the
plants and shortage of trucks to ferry goods.
On
top of it, they now have to deal with raw material scarcity.
ITC
has been focussing solely on the production and supply of essential items like
foodstuff and sanitisation products after scaling down operations.
Its
factories have stopped making cigarettes for the time being.
HUL’s
sales have dropped to 40 per cent of the usual daily run rate, after scaling up
from low single digits in the last week of March.
HUL’s factories are
operating at about 40 per cent of the required output.
"Due to restricted
capacity at the main ports in India, both for sea and air freight, we are
facing a scarcity of import of material for which a locally-produced
alternative is extremely difficult to find.
"We are working
closely with the government and local bodies to try to ensure continued and
uninterrupted supply of essential goods to the people of our nation in these
difficult times,” an HUL spokesperson told Business Standard.
According to industry
officials, the scarcity of raw materials has not only affected manufacturing of
edibles but even of items like nozzle pumps, and other goods used in packaging.
“We are facing issues at
ports, which is impeding the smooth movement of both imported raw material and
exportable finished products.
"The clearing of
import consignments and their movement is still sluggish,” Dabur India Ltd’s
executive director–operations, Shahrukh Khan told BS.
According to officials at
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Port, better known as the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT),
the current cargo-handling capacity stands at about 70 per cent and items like
pharmaceuticals, edible oil, petroleum and LPG, coking coal and raw material
for sanitisers are being prioritised for clearances.
Sources said the situation
across the country is nearly the same and because of the prioritisation and
limited workforce, some shipment clearances and unloading are getting delayed.
“The primary issue is that
of manpower availability.
"The handling agents
are trying to arrange for transporting the workers and maintain social
distancing norms but at times, the availability of vehicles is limited,” an
official at KoPT told Business Standard.
Around 90 per cent of
India’s trade in terms of volume and 70 per cent in terms of value is routed
via maritime routes.
CARE Ratings said that
volume in the ports declined to 63.17 million tonnes of cargo in March 2020
from 64.47 million tonnes during the corresponding month of previous year.
However, given the
scarcity, while Dabur is looking at import substitution, companies dependent on
global sourcing like HUL are getting affected.
“We are aggressively
looking at import substitution,” Khan added.
Queries sent to Nestle,
Marico and Godrej Consumer Products remained unanswered.
On the other hand, port
officials are worried that longer unloading times may soon lead to congesting
the port warehouses.
“However, with the revised
guidelines in place, the situation is expected to improve as more plants become
operational and more trucks can be loaded”, the KoPT official added.
Under the revised
guidelines from the union home ministry, plants and factories in rural zones
are allowed to function with limited workforce and under stringent working
conditions such as capped manpower and proper sanitisation.
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