E-commerce platforms welcome non-essential deliveries in Red zones

With lockdown 4.0, the government of India has announced some more relief for e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart, and others. The new guidelines have confirmed that e-commerce platforms will now able to deliver both essential as well as non-essential products in Red zones as well.

This means everyone living in Green, Red, and Orange zones will now be able to order smartphones, laptops, gadgets accessories from e-commerce platforms from now on. This means people living in containment zones can only order essential products.

E-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal, as well as specialised online retailers like Lenskart, Firstcry and Nykaa are preparing to start full-fledged deliveries across all the three zones (green, orange and red), except in containment zones, as the Centre announced an extension of the countrywide lockdown till May 31.

Earlier, these E-commerce companies could sell non-essential items such as smartphones and electronics in government-designated green and orange zones. However, in red zones, they were allowed to deliver only essential items such as food and groceries. As the country embraces relaxation in Lockdown 4.0, cab-hailing platforms such as Ola and Uber are also not in the current list of barred activities.