Amazon strengthens tie-up with Railways for faster delivery of essentials

The e-commerce giant is leveraging 'Covid-19 Parcel Special Trains' launched by Indian Railways to ramp up its operations to 55 lanes during lockdown period

Amazon India said it has strengthened its partnership with the Indian Railways to transport consignments via rail across the country.
 

The e-commerce giant is leveraging the ‘Covid-19 Parcel Special Trains’ introduced by the railways to ramp up operations to 55 lanes during the lockdown period. The firm said this is another step towards a long-term partnership between Amazon India and the railways.
 

The pact is to focus on developing the rail network to supplement road and air networks for transportation of customer packages with improved speed and reliability.

“In these unprecedented times, we understand the importance of ensuring that critical supplies reach our customers across the country. With the support of ‘Covid-19 Parcel Special’ trains introduced by the railways, we are confident that we can further fulfil customer orders with enhanced speed and capacity,” said Abhinav Singh, director – Amazon Transportation Services, Amazon India. He added, “We are grateful to the railways for this timely decision to offer freight movement solutions during these challenging times.”
 

The railways, with support from the Railway Board and its respective zones (like Western, Central, Northern, Eastern, South Central, Southern, South Eastern, North East Frontier, North Western and South Western), has created a proactive solution to provide support for transportation during the lockdown. Amazon said this enhanced network will enable sellers in Amazon India’s network to ship products across the country and keep their businesses running. This will allow people to access a more diverse selection of essential products.

“We are pleased to extend our partnership with Amazon India and offer services of ‘Covid-19 Parcel Special Trains’ to ensure that the essential needs of the public across the country are met. We will continue to build on this partnership to help the industry service customers during this period,” said a railways official.
 

To serve the communities while also ensuring the safety of its associates, Amazon said it has always innovated processes to prioritise delivery of items that are of high priority to customers. In 2019, Amazon India had partnered railways for inter-city transportation of e-commerce packages on 13 lanes.

Previously, the company had also tied up with the railways to set up pick-up kiosks for customers in Kolkata and Mumbai.
 

Amazon’s rival Flipkart on Monday said on Twitter that it “is proud to have partnered the railways to transport essential goods from Bengaluru to Mumbai as part of the IRTS SETU, a voluntary initiative of IRTS (Indian Railway Traffic Service) officers, using special parcel trains to meet consumer needs. We look forward to a continued partnership.”