Amazon India on Monday announced that it had strengthened its partnership with the Indian Railways to transport consignments via rail route across the country. The company is leveraging the ‘COVID-19 Parcel Special Trains’ introduced by the Indian Railways to ramp up operations to 55 lanes during the lockdown period.

This is yet another step towards a long-term partnership between Amazon India and Indian Railways, which is focussed on developing the rail network to supplement the road and air networks for the transportation of customer packages at greater speed and reliability.

Enhanced network

Indian Railways, with the support of the Railway Board and the zones across Western, Central, Northern, Eastern, South Central, Southern, South Eastern, North East Frontier, North Western and South Western, have created a proactive solution to provide support for transportation during the lockdown. This enhanced network will enable sellers to ship their products and keep businesses running, thereby, allowing people to access essential products.

“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.

“We are pleased to extend our partnership with Amazon India and offer services of ’COVID-19 Parcel Special Trains’ to ensure that essential needs of the public across the country are met and fulfilled by Amazon. We will continue to build on this partnership to help the industry service customers during this critical period.” said sources at the Indian Railways.

In 2019, Amazon India had partnered with Indian Railways for inter-city transportation of e-commerce packages on 13 lanes. Previously, the company had also partnered with the Indian Railways to set up pick-up kiosks for customers in Kolkata and Mumbai.