E-commerce behemoth Amazon on Wednesday said its largest
fulfilment centre (FC), essentially a warehouse, in India on the
outskirts of Hyderabad will be operational next month.
Beyond
the scale, the announcement assumes significance as the firm is putting
on hold future investments in warehousing infrastructure in Karnataka,
where it is facing taxation issues.
The Telangana government provided necessary clearances for the 2.80 lakh sq ft facility near Kottur, in merely 11 days.
“This
is the largest investment in infrastructure in any single State to date
by Amazon in India,” the company said, without specifying the sum. A
State government official said the project came under the mega project
category – investment of Rs.200 crore and more.
Besides in line with its assurance of clearances for
mega projects within 15 days, the speedy approval is a pointer to the
State government’s stamp of approval of Amazons model. “Our Commercial
Taxes department has cleared their business model,” a senior official in
the Industries Department said, agreeing the State a few months ago
examined transactions of e-commerce firms, including Amazon. It did so
to ascertain whether such deals were a cause for dropping revenues.
Amazon
made the announcement on the new FC after a team led by its senior vice
president (worldwide operations and customer service) Dave Clark met
Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao and IT Minister K.T.Rama Rao in the
city. With the new FC, the company will have 11 such operational
facilities in nine States covering over one million square feet space.
The cumulative storage capacity is over 2.5 million cubic feet.
In
a statement, the Chief Minister reiterated his government’s efforts to
make the State investor friendly. Mr.Clark said the decision to invest
more in Telangana – where Amazon’s IT operations are based – is based on
the ease of doing business in the State.
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