Siliguri · West Bengal
Packing plywood, crates and pallets for Siliguri's tea exporters and border-trade packers
We manufacture packing-grade plywood, made-up crates, pallets and container flooring for the tea-export and cross-border cargo trade that moves through Siliguri. Built in our Perumbavoor facilities, where the group has manufactured since 1986, and trucked north on a lane we run every week.
The industrial picture
Why Siliguri sits on a different supply map
Siliguri is not a typical mid-size industrial town. It is the bottleneck of the Siliguri Corridor, the 22-km-wide strip of land that connects mainland India to the entire Northeast, and it doubles as the staging post for four international borders: Nepal at Panitanki, Bhutan via Jaigaon and Phuentsholing, and Bangladesh through Fulbari and Changrabandha. Any business that crates tea, repacks border-trade cargo, ships engineering goods to the Northeast, or consolidates freight through the New Jalpaiguri rail yard ends up buying plywood, sawn timber, pallets and container-floor boards. We manufacture that material in Kerala and ship it across the country, and Siliguri's mix of tea-export packing and cross-border transshipment is one of the more interesting demand profiles in eastern India.
Packing-grade demand in Siliguri spreads across several distinct belts rather than one large estate. Knowing where the buyer sits usually decides the drop point and the order size.
Industrial belts and clusters
- Matigara industrial area — light engineering units, food processing, and a cluster of packing-case workshops that feed the tea estates uphill.
- Dabgram industrial estate (WBIDC) — the largest organised estate in the city, mixed-use with steel fabrication, agri-equipment and consumer-goods assembly. Pallet and crate consumption here is steady and recurring.
- Salugara and Fulbari belts — closer to the Bangladesh border crossing, dominated by transshipment yards, jute-and-agri export packers and timber re-handling operations.
- Bagdogra and the surrounding tea-handling depots — Darjeeling, Dooars and Terai tea moves through Siliguri auction centres and private warehouses before export. Plywood tea chests, shooks and inner-liner boards are a year-round line item.
Sectors driving plywood demand
- Tea-export packing — chests, cartons with ply bases, pallets for container stuffing at Kolkata and Haldia.
- Border-trade cargo — Bhutan-bound engineering and consumer goods, Nepal-bound bulk consumer goods, Bangladesh transshipment.
- Automotive spares and two-wheeler parts repacked for Northeast distribution.
- Pharma and consumer-goods warehousing — export pallets and secondary packaging.
- Construction along Siliguri's high-growth real-estate corridor on NH27 — shuttering plywood for slab and column work.
What we ship
What we manufacture for Siliguri loads
Most Siliguri orders fall into four buckets. The specs below are our standard offer; we tune thickness and face-veneer to the buyer's box design or load condition.
Packing-grade plywood for crates and cases
Our MR-Packing grade is the workhorse. Sheet size 8x4 ft, thicknesses 6 mm to 18 mm. Face-veneer options include hardwood, Gurjan and Okoume — Gurjan and Okoume are veneer choices on the same packing or BWR substrate, not separate grades. For tea-chest plywood and inner liners, 4 mm and 6 mm move fastest; for one-trip export crates of machinery, 12 mm and 18 mm are the common picks.
| Application | Thickness | Face option |
|---|---|---|
| Tea-chest plywood, inner liners | 4 mm, 6 mm | Hardwood |
| Domestic crates, secondary packing | 8 mm, 10 mm | Hardwood / Gurjan |
| One-trip export crates, machinery | 12 mm, 18 mm | Hardwood / Okoume |
| Container flooring (repair / rebuild) | 28 mm | Hardwood, phenolic film |
Made-up crates and shooks
For buyers who want crate kits rather than raw sheets, we cut and bundle shooks — sides, ends, tops, bottoms and runners — to drawing. This suits tea exporters who do not want to run a saw shop on-site and engineering-goods packers handling odd-lot dimensions.
Pallets
Two-way and four-way entry pallets in standard 1200x1000 mm and 1200x800 mm footprints, plus custom sizes for tea-chest stacking. Heat-treated and ISPM-15 stamped on request for export consignments through Kolkata and Haldia.
Container flooring
28 mm BWP container-floor plywood, hardwood face, with phenolic film options. Siliguri demand comes from container-repair yards and from operators rebuilding the floors of long-haul reefer and dry boxes used on the Bhutan, Bangladesh and Northeast India circuit.
Logistics
Kochi-to-Siliguri logistics
The trunk distance from Kochi/Ernakulam to Siliguri is roughly 2,400 km by road. We work three lanes depending on volume and timeline.
| Mode | Route | Transit (working days) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct road | NH-544 / NH-44 / NH-27 via Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Kolkata, then NH27 to Siliguri | 7–10 days | Full-truck orders, urgent crate kits |
| Rail + last-mile road | Ernakulam to New Jalpaiguri (NJP) goods rake, then 12 km road to consignee | 10–14 days | Heavy bulk orders, cost-sensitive buyers |
| Coastal + road | Cochin Port to Kolkata/Haldia, then ~600 km road to Siliguri via NH12 and NH27 | 12–16 days | Container-flooring quantities, mixed export loads |
Most buyers default to the direct road lane. We quote ex-factory Perumbavoor; freight is billed separately and is the honest variable. We do not bundle a padded freight figure into the sheet rate. For export consignments, pallets are heat-treated and ISPM-15 stamped so the phytosanitary documentation is ready for routing through Kolkata, Haldia or the land borders.
Choosing a grade
Which grade for which Siliguri load
Three grade-and-veneer choices come up most often.
- MR-Packing with hardwood face — the default for domestic crates, tea-chest secondary packaging and Bhutan-bound consumer goods. Best price-to-performance for single-trip wood boxes.
- BWR substrate with Okoume face — when the box has to look presentable at the consignee, when the cargo is moisture-sensitive, or when the buyer is invoicing an overseas customer who specifies a uniform light face-veneer. Common in premium tea exports and engineering goods crated for GCC and EU destinations through Kolkata.
- Shuttering plywood (filmfaced) — only for the construction buyer. The Siliguri real-estate belt along Sevoke Road and Matigara uses 12 mm and 18 mm filmfaced ply for slab and column work. Do not confuse this with packing demand; the buyer profile and reuse expectation are different.
FAQ
Siliguri supply questions
Do you supply ISPM-15 heat-treated pallets for tea and engineering exports?
Yes. Pallets are heat-treated and ISPM-15 stamped in our facilities. We quote per pallet with the stamp included, and the buyer gets the phytosanitary documentation needed for export consignments routed through Kolkata, Haldia or the land borders.
What is the minimum order for a direct shipment to Siliguri?
A full truck — about 18–22 tonnes, roughly 350–500 sheets depending on thickness — gives the cleanest economics. Smaller orders are possible on the rail plus last-mile lane, but the per-sheet landed cost climbs. We share both options on every quote so the buyer picks.
Can you cut to size, or supply sheets only?
Both. Sheets are the cheaper unit. Cut-to-size shooks add a per-sheet conversion charge but eliminate the buyer's saw-shop labour and offcut wastage. For tea-chest shooks and crate kits this almost always pays back.
Get a quote
Request a Siliguri quote
If you are a Siliguri-based crate maker, tea exporter, border-trade packer or container-yard operator, send us a one-line brief — sheet specification or crate drawing, monthly quantity and the delivery PIN — and we will come back with an ex-factory rate, the freight line for your lane and a lead time we can hold. Our group has manufactured packing-grade plywood in Perumbavoor since 1986 and ships pan-India every week; Siliguri is a regular drop. Request a quote for your next consignment, or browse the resource hub for grade datasheets, ISPM-15 notes and container-floor specifications before you raise the enquiry.