New Delhi, Aug 19 (IANS): The Indian e-commerce industry is expected to spend an additional $500 million to $1,000 million on infrastructure, logistics and warehousing, leading to a cumulative spend of $950 million to 1,900 million till 2017-2020, a joint study by industry body Assocham and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Tuesday said.

“The growth of the e-commerce industry has a huge potential in the country translating into beneficial effects for the manufacturing industry, infrastructure and jobs. In our white paper, we have tried to highlight the spill-over effect of the growth of ec-ommerce on infrastructure and logistics investments which will include more warehouses, sortation and delivery centres and employment,” said Saurabh Srivastava, director, operations, PwC, releasing the study, titled 'Evolution of e-Commerce in India', here.

“The potential of the sector and the likely liberalisation in the form of foreign direct investment could be a vital factor in attracting significant investments resulting in better infrastructure and robust supply chains,” he added.

According to the study, India currently operates at a very low level of air cargo penetration characterised by only a few airports equipped to handle large volumes of express delivery parcels.

As the market gathers momentum and moves to the tier-II and tier-III cities, there will be increasing demand of expanding air cargo connectivity to smaller towns, the study said.