Amazon India to use inland water transport to ship packages

Amazon India will soon begin using inland water transport to ship packages and has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) to this end.

“It's been a very conscious journey of building out a large logistics ecosystem, which is going to serve fast and reliable deliveries to customers across the length and breadth of the country,” Abhinav Singh, vice president of operations, Amazon India, told ET.

With this partnership, Amazon India will utilise inland waterways for the transportation of cargo containers. A pilot run is planned on the Patna to Kolkata waterway, which according to Singh will begin in the next few days and be expanded as infrastructure develops.


“The government's goal of lowering the cost of logistics for the country, making exports more competitive and reducing the burden of logistics and manufacturing, aligns with the strategic intent of Amazon to lower costs for our customers and to reduce the impact on the environment,” Singh added.

With the incorporation of inland waterways into its supply chain, the marketplace will be using multiple modes of transportation—on land, air and water—to deliver goods across the country.

“You can carry a lot of stuff together on a ship. You can carry fewer things together on a train, even less on a truck and the least on a plane. So, that’s where the costs go and grow,” Singh said while highlighting the benefit of choosing waterways.