Maharashtra may allow e-commerce companies to sell non-essentials in a week

Maharashtra is likely to allow delivery of non-essentials by ecommerce platforms such as Flipkart and Amazon in a week after a review of the fortnight-long lockdown that began Wednesday night, people familiar with the development told ET.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is in talks with the state government and industry to assess the kind of relaxation possible.

“The DPIIT is discussing with all to see what easing can be requested to states,” a government official told ET.


The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Ficci) have also lobbied the state government on this matter.

“Relaxations will be allowed in the week after, as the state government is keen to check movement of people,” said an industry executive. “We have held discussions on the issue and they have assured to look at them.”

The Maharashtra government asked for a week’s time to review the situation on the ground, based on which it may relax curbs on ecommerce, when approached by companies and industry groups, said another executive.

“They (state government) want to curb all people's movement in the state, hence they have issued such strict guidelines,” he said. “We hope they will relax the guidelines soon.”

The state is seeing a record number of new cases daily, with total active cases at more than 620,000, the highest in the country.

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday announced curfew-like restrictions on the movement of people in the state from April 14 to May 1. As per the guidelines issued, ecommerce companies are allowed to deliver only essentials.

An industry grouping asked the DPIIT to ensure that ecommerce is allowed to function “without any discrimination... in Maharashtra.” In the letter to the DPIIT, a copy of which ET has reviewed, it said the differentiation between essential and non-essential products was a “subjective matter.”

Ecommerce curbs hurt industry and the supply chain takes months to recover from disruptions, the letter said.

The industry has also asked for a relaxation in curfew times for online food aggregators, stating that dinner-time and late-night deliveries made up a large portion of their business.

“The (ecommerce) industry’s point of view was unanimous that there should be no differentiation basis essential and non-essential,” a senior executive at a leading ecommerce marketplace said. The industry is hopeful that the DPIIT would issue recommendations to states asking that they not impose any curbs on ecommerce activity. The industry was, however, aware that the department could not issue diktats to states and can best send an advisory, the person said.