Amazon is planning to use interior waterways in India to ship items to customers in an effort to find more affordable and environmentally friendly ways to deliver goods.
Towards this end, the ecommerce major signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI). “The premise of inland waterways is to be able to reduce the cost of transportation and reduce the impact on the environment as it is a lot more sustainable as a solution than road or rail. How do you make it a viable alternative not just for bulk carriage but also time-sensitive deliveries…that’s what this MoU is aimed at. A developed water network is the cheapest mode of transportation. This will also benefit the cost of Amazon as a company,” Abhinav Singh, vice-president, operations at Amazon India said.
With the help of IWAI and its carriers, the business will launch a trial run on the Patna to Kolkata waterways as part of the cooperation. According to Singh, the corporation would be able to distribute goods in locations that are inaccessible due to flooding by using inland waterways. "When air connectivity to the area may be disrupted, shipping can be used to deliver in places like Majuli Island in Assam or a place like Andaman & Nicobar Island," Singh stated.
“A supply chain is a combination of where you deploy the inventory and how you transport it post you deploy it. Water can be a very big enabler in helping us forward deployed inventory in a very cost efficient way,” Singh added.