Amazon India in a bid to enable faster deliveries to customers amid the nationwide lockdown has decided to transport its consignments on Indian railways, the company said on Monday.

The etailer announced that it has strengthened its partnership with the Indian Railways and has ramped up its operations to 55 lanes. In 2019, Amazon and Indian Railways had joined hands for inter-city transportation of its consignments on 13 lanes. It was then when the two sides had also set up pickup kiosks for customers in Kolkata and Mumbai.

“Amazon India will transport consignments via rail across the country and is leveraging the ‘COVID-19 Parcel Special Trains’ introduced by the Indian Railways to ramp up its operations to 55 lanes during the lockdown period,” it said in a statement.

“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,” the statement added.

Indian Railways with the support of the Railway Board and the zones across the country (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.

Amazon India Director (Amazon Transportation Services) Abhinav Singh said with the support of these special trains the company can further fulfil customer orders with enhanced speed and capacity.

“We are grateful for this timely decision by the Indian Railways to offer freight movement solutions during these challenging times,” he added.

With an aim to contain the spread of COVID-19, government initially announced a complete 21-day nationwide lockdown on March 23, which was later extended till May 3. During this period government had only allowed delivery of essential goods through e-commerce platforms.

In 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, they have been requesting government to expand the list of essentials to include ‘work from home’ and ‘study from home’ products.