Amazon India’s grocery delivery service Amazon Pantry has ramped up its service to select pin codes of 64 cities as on Monday up from 18 cities till this past Thursday. On the other hand, the delivery of other essential items has also been resumed from 33 cities last week to 41 cities as of now, according to details available on its app and website. Amazon Pantry was servicing 100 cities before the lockdown. The delivery of new grocery orders, however, could take five to eight days while orders for vegetables, fruit etc. under Amazon Fresh are being delivered in as early as two days. Amazon Fresh had started accepting orders on April 9 in select pin codes of Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
Amazon and other e-commerce marketplaces such as Flipkart, Snapdeal, others were supposed to resume full operations to sell non-essentials goods as well from April 20 onwards following the home secretary Ajay Bhalla’s order last week stating commercial and private establishments including e-commerce companies will be allowed to operate during the lockdown even as the order had said that e-commerce businesses will be allowed to deliver essential goods. However, the order didn’t categorically mention that non-essential deliveries are not allowed. This had prompted marketplaces to prepare for resuming their entire operations.
Also read: Flipkart, Amazon, others can’t sell non-essential items in lockdown; govt revises e-commerce rules
Consequently, a clarification was issued on Sunday by the home secretary to all state chief secretaries and secretaries of ministries and government departments said “sub-clause (v) under clause 14 on commercial and private establishments” has been excluded from the consolidated revised guidelines. The sub-clause (v) referred to “e-commerce companies. Vehicles used by e-commerce operators will be allowed to ply with necessary permissions.” Later, commerce Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted that the ‘clarification’ in the decision will create a level playing for small retailers. “Grateful to Hon’ble PM @NarendraModi ji for the clarification that e-commerce companies can only supply essential goods during the lockdown. This will create a level playing field for small retailers.”
The cities where Amazon Pantry is accepting orders in select pin codes include Ahmedabad, Ambala, Ambernath, Amritsar, Bardhaman, Barrackpore, Belgaum, Bengaluru, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Chittoor, Coimbatore, Cuttack, Dehradun, Dharwad, Ernakulam, Faridabad, Gandhinagar, Ghaziabad, Greater Noida, Guntur, Hooghly, Howrah, Hubli, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kaithal, Kakinada, Kanpur, Karnal, Kochi, Kolkata, Kurukshethra, Lucknow, Luudhiana, Madurai, Mangaluru, Manipal, Mumbai, Mysuru, Nagpur, Nashik, New Delhi, Panipat, Patiala, Patna, Pondicherry, Pune, Raigad, Rajahmundhry, Ranchi, Rohtak, Salem, Sonipat, Sriperumbudur, Surat, Tenali, Tirupathi, Vadodara, Vellore, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, and Warangal.
Deliveries are currently made in Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bengaluru, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Cuttack, Dehradun, Durgapur, Faridabad, Gandhi Nagar, Guntur, Gurugram, Hooghly, Howrah, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jamshedpur, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Mangaluru, Mohali, Mumbai (including Thane), Mysuru, Nagpur, Nashik, New Delhi, Noida, Panjim, Patna, Pune, Raipur, Rajahmundhry, Satara, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam and Warangal.
