CARGOCONNECT-JUNE2026 - Flipbook - Page 70
FEATURE Multimodal Agenda
RAYAPATI SRINATH REDDY
HEAD– S&OP, UNITED BREWERIES
Beyond the cost advantage,
multimodal forces a planning
discipline that drives savings. You start consolidating
shipments consciously, optimising load factors, reducing
empty-mile runs. The shift
is about becoming a more
deliberate, cost-conscious
supply chain.
aspects: regulatory requirements and the actions of
other stakeholders. The time taken by other stakeholders, especially EXIM traders, is never discussed. A
uni昀椀ed digital compliance platform is the need of the
hour. Geopolitical factors now govern the regulations,
making them very dynamic. Hence, the platform would
make compliance easier.
“The excise framework was not designed for multimodal,” observes Reddy. He draws attention to India’s
state-level excise system, built in an era when alcohol
moved by truck, point to point, on a prede昀椀ned route.
Transit permits, bonded warehouse rules, and physical
veri昀椀cation at check posts—all of it assumes a road-only,
single-vehicle, single-route model. Multimodal transport
involves multiple legs, multiple handoff points, and
routing through terminals that state excise systems often
don’t recognise. “There’s no ill intent in the policy—it
simply wasn’t designed with multimodal in mind.
But the practical e昀昀ect is that it creates a compliance
barrier for companies that want to shift volumes to
rail or intermodal,” he observes.
Typically, Reddy 昀氀ags three bottlenecks in multimodal adoption. First, state excise authorities need to
formally recognise rail terminals and Inland Container
Depots (ICDs) as valid transit points within the permit framework—not as exceptions requiring special
approval, but as standard options. Second, digital excise
compliance needs to accelerate. If transit permits can
be issued, tracked, and veri昀椀ed electronically with QR
codes, GPS-linked container tracking, and real-time
status updates visible to excise authorities, then the
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need for physical inspection at every handoff point
diminishes significantly. Third, there needs to be a
degree of harmonisation across states. Every state has
its own rules nowadays. For instance, a multimodal
corridor that crosses three states faces three di昀昀erent
compliance regimes. Some level of standardisation,
even if not full uniformity, would make multimodal
viable for regulated goods.
Integration Hurdles in Multimodal
Transition
Coordinating between multiple transport modes increases
the likelihood of delays, with disruptions in one leg
a昀昀ecting the entire chain. Transitioning from a truckonly model to a multimodal combination introduces
signi昀椀cant integration hurdles, primarily characterised
by increased logistical complexity, technological gaps,
and infrastructure constraints. While o昀昀ering cost and
emission benefits, moving away from road-centric,
direct-to-door transport often results in fragmented
visibility and higher administrative burdens.
Reddy shares the real-world scenario. “In my FMCG
years, the integration hurdles were largely operational
and organisational,” he says. When your teams have
lived in a truck-only world for years, there’s an invisible
resistance. The planning team knows truck transit times
by heart, commercial folks have trusted transporters on
speed dial, warehousing is designed around truck bays.
“Asking everyone to think in terms of rake schedules,
container dimensions, and multi-leg journeys feels like
learning a new language mid-conversation. The hardest
part wasn’t technology, it was people,” he avows.
He continues, “On the practical side, container
availability was unpredictable, rake schedules didn’t
align with dispatch plans, and tracking across multiple
hando昀昀 points—truck to rail terminal, rail transit, rail
terminal back to truck—was a visibility nightmare
compared to one truck with one GPS device. We resolved
these in stages: smarter planning with longer lead times,
dedicated capacity arrangements with train operators,
and a control tower model that gave us one screen, one
truth across all modes.”
In the alcohol beverages industry, the hurdles go
a level deeper, explains Reddy, and adds, “The excise
policy framework is fundamentally rigid when it comes
to multimodal. Most state excise systems require speci昀椀c
transit permits that are issued for a de昀椀ned origin,
destination, and route—typically by road. The permit
assumes your truck will move directly from Point A
