Integrated logistics services provider Gateway Distriparks on Tuesday reported a 99.02 percent jump in its consolidated profit at Rs 32.62 crore in the quarter ended December. The company had posted a profit of Rs 16.39 crore in the third quarter of financial year 2019-20.

Total sales grew 3.88 percent to Rs 316.29 crore during the quarter under review as against Rs 304.48 crore in the third quarter of the previous financial year, the company said in a release. Rail container volumes were up 8.8 percent to 67,042 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) as against 61,634 TEUs in the third quarter of financial year 2020, while the CFS business declined 11 percent to 84060 TEUs, which was 94,337 TEUs earlier.

"The figures do not represent normal operations, due to COVID-19, and so that to that extent are not strictly comparable with the prior period," the company said in an investors' presentation. One of the largest private Container Freight Stations (CFS) operators in India, GDL operates six such stations, with two at Nhava Seva and one in Chennai, Krishnapatnam, and Kochi and Visakhapatnam. The company and its subsidiary Gateway Rail together can operate over two million TEUs with 31 train sets and over 500 trailers across 11 container terminals.

Besides, Snowman Logistics Ltd, an integrated temperature-controlled logistics services provider, is an associate of GDL. "H1FY21 was impacted by COVID-19-linked disruptions, which had weighed on volumes particularly in Q1FY21. The revival in the EXIM trade has been much faster than anticipated," it said.

"In Q3 FY21, the company witnessed a sharp recovery in its overall volumes for both our CFS and Rail Container business. The improvement in volumes has been seen sequentially every month since the beginning of October 2020," Prem Kishan Dass Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, GDL said.

In December 2020, the company recorded the highest monthly throughput of 25,676 TEUs in the rail container business. Besides, in the same month, the CFS business witnessed close to peak business with 30,085 TEUs, he added.

The 306 km long Rewari-Madar section of the WDFC (Western Dedicated Freight Corridor) inaugurated in the first week of this month provides a quantum boost to the freight and logistics of the entire Northern India region, he said.

According to Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd, the 335-km long Madar-Palanpur section of WDFC is likely to be commissioned by the end of this fiscal, Gupta said