E-commerce major Flipkart plans to start its integrated logistics hub in Bengal by the middle of next year.

The West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation had earmarked 100 acres at Haringhata where the project is set to come up with an estimated investment of around Rs 991 crore.

“Construction is currently on. We are hoping that by mid next year, we would have our integrated logistics hub at Haringhata,” said Rajneesh Kumar, chief corporate affairs officer, Flipkart.

Flipkart, now majority owned by US-based retail giant Walmart, is set to employ over 10,000 people in the project. The hub will also help Flipkart to cater to the northeastern market.

“The benefit is that a lot of suppliers and sellers, not just in the state but also in Northeast will have access to better infrastructure,” Kumar said. He was in the city to attend a workshop organised in collaboration with Ficci to help MSMEs leverage e-commerce to grow their business.

The workshops cover areas such as business growth planning, accounting and taxation, access to capital, identifying new opportunities, the significance of digital brand building, developing and scaling brands and managing supply chain.

Flipkart has over 2 lakh sellers who are primarily MSMEs. The company plans to hold workshops in cities such as Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Guwahati and Nagpur to add more sellers.

Compliance burden

The Union budget has proposed a 1 per cent tax deducted at source on e-commerce transactions. While this is likely to increase the compliance burden, Kumar said onboarding of sellers is unlikely to be impacted.

“A lot of sellers have reached out to us and they have also approached the government saying that it will increase the compliance burden. The MSME wings of Ficci and other organisations are also giving their representations to the government,” he said.