Amazon partners with BMC to deliver essentials in Mumbai’s containment zones

Amazon on Thursday announced its partnership with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to enable delivery of essential items to the city’s residents stuck inside containment zones.

The e-commerce giant said it will start allowing customers staying in containment zones across the city to place orders. This comes after the online retailer piloted the services successfully in partnership with the city’s municipal body.

“We want to help keep India safe and we firmly believe that Amazon has a unique role to play in providing a critical service for customers to get the goods they need for their families without leaving their homes,” said Prakash Rochlani, Director of Last Mile Operations at Amazon India.

Amazon said it will deliver packages ordered by customers within the containment zones and drop them off at the common delivery points located at the periphery of these zones. Volunteers within the zones would then deliver the packages to customer doorsteps.

For customers within containment zones, the process of buying essentials will remain exactly the same, just that they would need to select the containment zone that they reside in to ensure Amazon can drop off the packages at the right delivery point.

“Various e-commerce companies have prioritized deliveries to containment areas at society gates,” said Jayshree Bhoj, Additional Commissioner of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

Amazon is also enabling deliveries into containment zones in Delhi and Hyderabad, the company said. Other e-commerce players such as BigBasket and Grofers too are working extensively with local authorities to ensure delivery of essentials in such restricted areas.

While the overall e-commerce industry is expected to post little to no growth this year, with analyst Forrester Research estimating the industry to grow just 6% this year, sales of essentials online has seen a massive spurt due to the Covid-19 crisis.

ET had reported that online grocers BigBasket and Grofers had doubled their daily orders five weeks into the lockdown.