KOLKATA: Warehouse leasing in the financial year 2023 has been at a six-year high in Kolkata with 5.1 mn sq ft warehousing space being leased in the 2022-23 fiscal.
Kolkata registered an 18 per cent YoY (Year on Year) upswing over the warehousing space leased in FY 2022 (4.3 mnsq ft), which is the second highest annual increase across the top eight cities in FY 2023. Only Bangalore with 25 per cent upswing is ahead of Kolkata.
According to the ‘India Warehousing Market Report – 2023’ of Knight Frank India, Kolkata has emerged as a top performing warehousing market in India with the market getting organised gradually in terms of availability of warehousing stock.
NCR, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Ahmedabad are the five cities that showed a negative YoY growth while Mumbai had a 10 percent upswing which is much less than Kolkata.
Of the total warehouse space leased in FY 2023, National Highway 16 (Old NH 6) accounted for the lion’s share with 64 per cent.
The share of this cluster in the city’s warehouse leasing volume expanded from 59 per cent in FY 2022 to 64 per cent due to large deals by occupiers from retail, e-commerce and manufacturing occupiers in locations such as Amta-Ranihati Road, Jangalpur, Dhulagarh and Uluberia. The prominence of National Highway 16 (Old NH 6) in Kolkata continues to increase due to the availability of Grade-A spaces which is a key catalyst for new occupier transactions in this warehousing cluster.
However, the share of Dankuni and its suburbs moderated slightly from 36 per cent in FY 2022 to 33 per cent in FY 2023. The remaining 3 per cent was leased in the Madhyamgram-Barasat belt.
Unlike past trends, Third-party logistics (3PL) providers and manufacturing companies have as the top occupier sector accounting for 28 per cent of the total transaction volume in FY23.
The manufacturing and retail sector occupiers commanded 24 per cent and 19 per cent share respectively.