In its journey of less than a decade in India, US e-commerce company Amazon has pledged to create one million jobs in the country by 2025.
On Tuesday, the company’s director for last mile operations (India), Karuna Shankar Pande, said: “The target on board cannot be achieved without intensifying work in Uttar Pradesh.”
He added that Amazon already has a substantial presence in UP through its fulfilment centers—Lucknow, Agra, and Gorakhpur have a combined storage space of over 3 million cubic feet—and a massive sorting centre in the state capital. He said the company has over 1 lakh sellers in the state, including small-business owners, women entrepreneurs, artisans, and start-up founders.
Three different back-end programmes, all with a significant presence in UP, are used by Amazon India for effective delivery.
“This includes the delivery service partner programme through which Amazon India partners with small and mid-sized businesses for delivery. Currently, 50 of the 1,850 Amazon-owned and partner delivery stations are in UP, providing work opportunities to thousands of delivery associates,” he said.
Talking about the Amazon partner programme ‘I Have Space’ (IHS), he said: “Under this, the company ties up with local stores and business owners to deliver products to customers within 4km radius of their store, allowing them to supplement their regular income.”
IHS has doubled its base during the pandemic period in UP, he said, adding that the programme will play an important role as Amazon scales its delivery network across UP.
Since its launch in2015, IHS has connected with 28,000 neighbourhood and kirana partners in nearly 420 Indian towns.
“In UP, IHS stores are enabling us deliver in remote locations like Faizabad, Barabanki, Shahjahanpur, Hardoi and Mahmudabad,” he said.
Amazon Flex is the third crucial programme of the company in 65 cities of India. “This is an opportunity for individuals to deliver packages during spare time and supplement their income,” he said.
