Will Chennai become self-sufficient by 2025 ?

Welcome Readers!

I am Sheerapthi Ramiya, 2nd Year MBA from Amrita School of Business, coming back with this week's read ! Hope my readers are doing well and I hope you enjoy :) 

It has been 5 months since this blog goes up that the lockdown has been imposed all over India. We have seen how citizens reacted after this news which eventually lead to stockouts. Withing a few days of lockdown, the prices of fruits and vegetables skyrocketed. As we all know Chennai gets its fruits and vegetables from other districts in Tamil Nadu and other states too for its food supply. With lockdown in effect, transportation was made to a stand still which rose demand and price. It clearly shows the Chennai needs to be self-sufficient and self reliant by having a population of 1.09 Crores. If you have read my previous article about the blockade in Qatar, you can see how Qatar took action against this issue. The same is one possible solution to Chennai's food supply.

Where does Chennai gets its Food?

As mentioned before, the food supply in Chennai is majorly from other states in India, districts in Tamil Nadu and a few imported from countries abroad. Given below is a map showing where Chennai receives fruits and vegetables.

All the fruits and vegetables primarily end up at one important location which is apperently Asia's Largest perishable goods market complex - Koyembedu market, the 295 acre marketplace. It is at this point where fruits and vegetables are distributed to retailers across Chennai which finally reaches to the end consumers. This is not the only way retailers obtain these goods; retailers employ contract farming and in some cases have their own farms where they source the produce to be sold. Hence they do not have to rely on Koyembedu Market in this Case. Given below is a picture of Koyembedu Market.

The solution to Post Covid Measures - IDSPs

As mentioned above, transportation has been severely affected due to the Lockdown which bring supplies of goods to a standstill. Food delivery service providers like Swiggy and Zomato began diversifying their business by delivering groceries, fruits and vegetables besides cooked food from restaurants. To confront the the shortage of supply of fruits and vegetables, The State Horticulture Department introduced e-thottam, for home delivery and the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) initiated ward-level supplies of vegetables in carts.

We all saw in the news about Koyembedu market emerging as one of the major clusters contributing to the rise of COVID cases in Chennai and Tamil Nadu. A solution that emerged form a study by Urban Design Collective (UDC) stated the use of Intermediary Delivery Service Providers (IDSP). By applying this service, the number of retailers visiting the market can be reduced. Vehicles can be used to bring the market to your locality or neighborhood. Here one vehicle could support the supply of 10-20 retailers. A visualization of this implementation is shown below.

According to this visual given by UDC, we can see that food reaches the end consumers through one of the following options: door step delivey using app-based platforms, home delivery by shops, direct sales, using app-based platforms. The use of IDSPs reduce the number of trips and thereby crowding at he Koyembedu market, thereby controlling the supply. The IDSPs will deliver supplies to the shops directly from the market line through an app or phone line. 

Adding to this research, the street hawkers or fruit and vegetable retailers are using vehicles and carts to deliver groceries into neighborhoods which further improves the supply to the consumers. We are living in an economy where what we need to comes to us instead of us going to what we need.

Can Chennai survive random supply shortages like these?

Even though temporary solution are made and implemented, a permanent solution has to be implemented to safeguard Chennai's supply shortage. To make Chennai self-reliant and self-sufficiant, the Government is promoting "Community Thottams" and "Mottamadi Thottams". A Visualization is shown below. 

This implementation opens up possibilities for gated communities, educational institutions and public building to supply their own food resources. Such projects also enables unused lands and empty plots to be set up as community farms. The main catch of this implementation is the reduction of carbon emission for transporting fruits and vegetables. Given below is a video rooftop farming. (Link: https://youtu.be/bzPDCh52CR)

The Windup

Situations like these really help us to ponder upon existing supply chain systems and also makes us find efficient solutions to make supply chain better. Detroit, which was the heart of the automobile industry for USA, is now a Ghost town due to scarcity of fresh food retail. People there suffered food shortages and were forced to move out as they suffered with health issues and illnesses. However there were a group of people who took this problem and found a solution i.e urban agriculture. In the similar way, Food - the basic necessity for a human, should not be at stake due to these events. Self-sufficiency and being self reliant is the way to progress!

What are your thoughts on this ? Do comment below :)

If you haven't check out my last week's read, which is about self sufficiency and self reliance during a nationwide blockade, click the link below !

https://logisticsmatters.blogspot.com/2020/08/how-did-qatar-deal-with-supply-chains.html

- Sheerapthi Ramiya

ASB, Coimbatore