Topics In Demand
Notification
New

No notification found.

Blog
Easyport – Trying to solve for freight issues in agriculture and MSMEs with one click truck booking service!

August 16, 2019

2007

0

During the NIPP challenge in June 2019, I met a start-up whose founder a passionate engineering student from Bhopal was keen on solving the freight issues faced by agriculture and MSMEs. And he seems to be solving it with his freight mobility application ‘Easyport’, which was launched in February 2019.

This young student entrepreneur is Atharva Kulkarni, founder of SmartUp, whose EasyPort app is trying to solve the truck booking (freight) problems for agriculture and MSMEs in tier 2, 3 & 4.

 

The Indian Freight Market

In India, road remains the most preferred mode of travel despite its notional cost disadvantage, considering it is more reliable compared to rail and waterways.

Though the demand for road freight is high and increasing, on the supply side the market is highly fragmented with numerous small players, which gives rise to high level of operational inefficiencies, making it relatively expensive and inefficient.

 

Lack of Efficient Agricultural Logistics in India  

Efficient logistics becomes an even bigger challenge in case of agricultural produce which is a waste if it does not reach its destination on time.

  • Notably, OECD countries lose 2% to 3% of the agricultural products during shipment, while that share of loss in much higher in case of developing countries which lose up to 25%1.
  • In case of India this share is even higher with 40%1 of agricultural production being wasted in the supply chain.

Thus, an efficient logistics system can benefit farmers in a big way as it would help in reduction in loss and wastage of produce during transportation to markets. Moreover, reducing this wastage could both provide an income boost to farmers and also lower overall prices for produce, creating better access to high quality food for Indian citizens.

The ‘EasyPort’ Solution

Atharva Kulkarni is trying to solve for these inefficiencies in the freight process through its app EasyPort, which uses platform as a service approach to empower existing transport agencies to remove the operational hassles from the entire system. Moreover, the company claims that it ensures load tracking and makes insurance available at a very cheap rate. Also, what makes the solution stand apart is the company’s satellite based tracker which never goes offline, making the whole tracking process more reliable.

As per Atharva, “Though the app is still to upload on Google play, it’s already a 5.0 as we have upgraded the app each time we got any feedback. Currently, we are working only in Madhya Pradesh and will slowly move outside as and when we find the right partners – as the focus is on recurring customers. Also, we see good amount of traction among the gen 2 farmers who are fairly tech savvy and support tech applications like ours”

The company plans to file a patent for the tracker soon and claims that the app is gaining traction and has added 20 happy customers in tier 3 cities, since its launch in February this year. Also, till June 2019 it had:

  • Added 600 verified trucks
  • Raised over INR19 lacs of bills
  • INR40 lacs worth of total load, of which goods worth over INR7 lacs was insured load

In my words I saw the current Easyport app as “Technology simplified for Good use” while for Atharva he aims to grow this from “One click truck booking” to “Complete logistics solution in a pocket” with plans to add every segment of logistics in their offering!!

More such startup stories which are working towards solving the urban mobility challenges in NASSCOM’s upcoming report “Making Urban Mobility – Seamless, Sustainable and Safe”

 

 

Notes:

  1. Niti Ayog – Goods on the Move”, September 2018

That the contents of third-party articles/blogs published here on the website, and the interpretation of all information in the article/blogs such as data, maps, numbers, opinions etc. displayed in the article/blogs and views or the opinions expressed within the content are solely of the author's; and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of NASSCOM or its affiliates in any manner. NASSCOM does not take any liability w.r.t. content in any manner and will not be liable in any manner whatsoever for any kind of liability arising out of any act, error or omission. The contents of third-party article/blogs published, are provided solely as convenience; and the presence of these articles/blogs should not, under any circumstances, be considered as an endorsement of the contents by NASSCOM in any manner; and if you chose to access these articles/blogs , you do so at your own risk.


images
Neha Jain
Senior Analyst

Neha Jain

Comment

images
Thank you Neha ma'am for saying such good words about me and my venture. It was great meeting you and team Nasscom. Being a part of that event was like a dream come true. I used to imagine how the centre of all startup industry would look like and it exactly looks like Nasscom. I am grateful for all of this ma'am. Hope that I become a part of 10k startup one day. Thanks for that lovely chat and this amazing write-up.
images
Thanks for the kind words! You are most welcome! All the best!

© Copyright nasscom. All Rights Reserved.