On Monday, e-commerce giant, Amazon India announced that Indian Railways is set to transport Amazon’s consignments across the country. Amazon stated that IRCTC will do so by means of its newly unveiled COVID-19 Parcel Special Trains. Since the announcement of lockdown, Indian Railways has been ramping up its operations in 55 lanes with these special trains. For context, Indian Government initially announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown on March 23, which was later extended till May 3. During this time they had permitted nothing but essential economic activities including delivery of essential goods via e-commerce platforms.
With the support of the Railway Board and their zones across the country (Western, Central, Northern, Eastern, South Central, Southern, South Eastern, North East Frontier, North Western and South Western) Indian Railways has created this proactive solution to provide support for transportation. These railway operations are meant to be active till May 3 when this 40-day lockdown ends.
In 2019, Amazon and Indian Railways had collaborated for inter-city transportation of its consignments on 13 lanes. Both parties had set up pickup kiosks for customers in Kolkata and Mumbai, back then. Experts are considering this to be yet another step towards a long-term partnership between Amazon India and Indian Railways. The railways is focused on developing its network to supplement the road and air networks for the transportation of customer packages with greater speed and reliability.
In their statement, Amazon India Director (Amazon Transportation Services) Abhinav Singh said, “This enhanced network will enable sellers in Amazon India’s network to ship their products across the country and keep their businesses running, thereby, allowing people to access a more diverse selection of essential products.”
Furthermore, he added, “We are grateful for this timely decision by the Indian Railways to offer freight movement solutions during these challenging times.”
On the other hand, Indian Railways has expressed its pleasure at being able to help deliver essential services, during these troubling times. It further said, “We will continue to build on this partnership to help the industry service customers during this critical period.”
According to the latest guidelines, issued on April 16, the Ministry of Home Affairs had barred the e-commerce platforms from supplying non-essential goods during the lockdown period. However, the platforms have been requesting government to expand the list of essentials to include ‘work from home’ and ‘study from home’ products.