“In this regard, the Haldia Development Authority has already earmarked 90 acres of land for them in its industrial zone area and the lease acquisition is in process. This logistics park site is approximately seven km from the Port of Haldia and close to its petrochemicals centre. It will be developed to provide distribution warehousing and transport services as well as ancillary facilities such as commercial offices, hotels, retail outlets and light processing workshops,” said Mr Parwez Ahmed Siddiqui, chief executive officer of HDA.

Haldia is located 90 km downstream from Kolkata at the confluence of the Haldi and Hooghly rivers, and ranks as the fifth largest port in India. It is a major petrochemicals centre with an oil refinery, fertiliser facilities, manufacturing plants and various light industries. It hosts some of the biggest national and international petrochemical companies including Indian Oil Corporation, Tata Chemicals, Haldia Petrochemicals and Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation. "The West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) and Tata Steel have formed a joint venture to build a coking plant for the production of 800,000 tonnes of coke per annum. Such a port-based industrial zone should have a logistics park and I think that this should have been built at least 15 to 20 years ago,” Mr Siddiqui said. Eredene has made the investment with Apeejay Surrendra Group, the owners of Typhoo Tea and a global Indian business which employs more than 40,000 people in real estate, tea, hospitality, shipping and retail