Flipkart acquires 140-acre land at Rs 432 crore, to develop logistic park

NEW DELHI: E-commerce giant Flipkart has acquired 140-acre land to set up their largest fulfilling centre in Asia in Manesar in Gurgaon. The executive empowered committee of Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) approved the allotment at a cost of Rs 432 crore.

Walmart-owned Flipkart will set up a logistic park in the land parcel over the next 3-5 years, which has a potential of a total buildup area of five million square feet and will be developed in 2-3 phases. The development is expected to cost Rs 3500 crore and will create over 12000 jobs in the state.

The first phase is likely to be operationalised by 2022.

Property consultant Knight Frank were the advisors to Flipkart for this project.

“With the recent experience of the lockdown and more and more people relying on e-commerce for regular purchase, the demand for warehousing facilities has taken a quantum leap. This deal is especially important as it comes at a time when the economy has started to open, and economy has started to revert to normality,” said Shishir Baijal, Chairman and Managing Director, Knight Frank India.

As per Knight Frank’s report warehousing demand has seen strong growth in the last few years and has recorded a significant rise of 44% CAGR since 2017, mostly after the introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST).

“Despite an economic slowdown, warehousing leasing activity saw healthy demand in Mumbai (8% YoY), Pune (42% YoY) and Ahmedabad (5% YoY) in FY2020. Rents in Grade A properties for FY2020 remained stable ranging from Rs 13-32/ sq ft/ month for FY 2020,” said Mudassir Zaidi, executive director (north), Knight Frank.

Flipkart already has 12 supply chain assets in Haryana, including supply chain infrastructure for large appliances, non-large (mobile, apparel), grocery and furniture. The company did not respond to the email query till press time.

According to Rajneesh Khullar, chairman, HSIIDC, in view of the increasing demand of warehousing from e-commerce companies HSIIDC has set up a warehousing hub in 285 acre in Manesar.

“The land has been allotted at a bare shell cost of Rs 3.09 crore per acre and all the infrastructure will be laid by the Flipkart group,” Khullar said.