Taking another step towards implementing the direction of “Minimum Government Maximum Governance” given by Prime Minister, promoting ease of doing business and bringing private sector efficiencies in Public Sector Undertakings, the Union Cabinetchaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approvedto merge and transfer all assets, liabilities, rights and obligations of ‘Central Railside Warehouse Company Limited’ (CRWC), a Mini-Ratna Category-II Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE) incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956 in 2007 with its holding enterprise ‘Central Warehousing Corporation’ (CWC). The merger will unify similar functions of both the companies (i.e., warehousing, handling, transportation) through a single administration to promote efficiency, optimum capacity utilization, transparency, accountability, ensure financial savings and leverage railway siding for new warehousing capacities.

It is estimated that management expenditure of Railside Warehouse Complexes (RWCs) will come down by Rs. 5 crore due to savings in the corporate office rent, salary of employees, and other administrative costs. The capacity utilization of RWCs will also improve as there will be potential for CWC to store commodities other than commodities of cement, fertilizer, sugar, salt and soda being stored presently. The merger will facilitate setting up of at least 50 more Railside warehouses near the goods-shed locations. This is likely to generate employment opportunities equivalent to 36,500 mandays for skilled workers and 9,12,500 mandays for unskilled workers. The merger is expected to be completed within 8 months of the date of decision.

CWC is a Mini-Ratna Category-I CPSE set up in 1957 to provide for incorporation and regulation of Warehousing Corporations for the purpose of warehousing of agriculture produce and certain other commodities notified by the Central Government and for matters connected there with. CWC is a profit making Public Sector Enterprise (PSE) with authorized capital of Rs.100 crore and paid up capital of Rs. 68.02 crore. CWC formed a separate subsidiary company named ‘Central Railside Warehouse Company Ltd.’ (CRWC) on 10th July 2007 to plan, develop, promote, acquire and operate Railside Warehousing Complexes / Terminals / Multimodal Logistics Hubs on land leased from Railways or acquired otherwise. CRWC is a lean organization with 50 employees and staff of 48 outsourced personnel. Presently, it is operating 20 Railside Warehouses across the country. As on 31st March 2020, the net worth (paid up capital plus free reserves) of the company is Rs. 137.94 crore. CRWC developed specialization, expertise and goodwill in development and operation of RWCs but due to shortage of capital and also due to some of the restrictive clauses in its MoU with Ministry of Railways, its pace of growth was not as expected.

As CWC is the sole shareholder of CRWC and all the assets and liabilities and rights and obligations will be transferred to CWC, there will be no financial loss to either instead it will bring synergy. A separate Division with the name ‘RWC Division’ will be created by CWC for handling operations and marketing of RWCs.

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DS