Unleashing e-Retailing Connectivity - Connect India Partners with CSCs and United Parcel Service

In its bid to facilitate last mile connectivity for e-retailing, Connect India, a last mile delivery company launched in August 2015, has partnered with United Parcel Service (UPS) and CSC e SPV, a special purpose vehicle formed by the Government of India.

The company which has been expanding extensively since its launch, has created a network of over 3500 Connect India Centers (CICs) providing access to 2500 unique pin-codes.

Connect India model is designed to deliver with the assurance of time definiteness and convenience by establishing a neighborhood distribution network across India apart from leveraging underutilized economic infrastructure like neighborhood kirana stores, medical shops, mobile stores and internet cafes, etc. and can also serve as a last mile delivery point.

The robust momentum created by strong networking in the past months, will drive Connect India to establish 15000 CICs through the CSC Channel and other small entrepreneurs in over 12000 pin-codes by March 2016. The company’s vision is to eventually cover 25,000 pin codes and establish 50,000 Connect India Centers by the end of FY 16-17.

To achieve this milestone, it was important for Connect India to partner with the existing and under-utilized infrastructure established by the government in the form of Common Services Centres (CSCs), which are almost One Hundred and Fifty Thousand in number currently across the country.

These centers, which have been helping people in rural areas avail various e-governance services will also serve as a last-mile delivery option and cater to the e-commerce demands in the country, thanks to Connect India’s collaboration. Each CSC is expected to serve a cluster of 6-7 villages, thereby covering more than six lakh villages across India.

L. R. Sridhar, Founder and CEO of Connect India said, “We aim to become the drop-box for all domestic, international and banking needs in India. The Indian e-retail market is expected to grow to $20 billion by 2017 and about three-four million packages will be delivered in next three years, which can only be achieved by creating last-mile distributions through strategic partnerships. Our objective is to connect 100% serviceable pin codes in India, thus, connecting Rural India to Urban India and India to the World. This will entail, first and foremost, evaluating possible business models and riding the wave of mobile Internet connectivity to create a relevant marketplace platform for rural India. Even as we explore new alliances to improve our last-mile distribution capabilities, being UPS’s Authorized Shipping Outlet will open up a whole new international market for our customers

The tie-up with UPS will help connect potential economic village clusters in India to the 220 countries of the World through reliable trade lines provided by Connect India and UPS.”

Dr. Dinesh Kumar Tyagi, CEO, CSC SPV, commenting on their association with Connect India said, “The CSCs were designed to be Change Agents as it promotes rural entrepreneurship, builds rural capacities and livelihoods, enables community participation and effects collective action for social change by having a key focus on the rural citizen. It will be mutual benefitting to both CSCs and Connect India as we together establish a robust last mile logistic model and create more job opportunities through this tie-up. This will also help e-commerce firms have a better reach in the smallest and remotest villages and towns”.

Connect India Distribution model will not only bring a revolution in the logistics industry, but will also create commerce and livelihood to the large rural population by connecting Rural India to the Urban India and India to the world, through such international partnerships.