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MHA allows delivery of non-essential goods in red zones as per the new guidelines

The Ministry of Home Affairs allows the delivery of non-essential goods in the red zones as per the new guidelines issued on Sunday according to lockdown 4.0

MHA allows delivery of non-essential goods in red zones as per the new guidelines
SHARES

In recent developments, the Ministry of Home Affairs announced the allowance of delivery of non-essential products in red zones, as part of the new guidelines issued on Sunday for Lockdown 4.0, further providing huge relief to e-commerce companies.

E-commerce is touted to finally resume full operations nearly after two months of stagnation as a consequence of the lockdown which began on March 25. So far, e-commerce was only allowed to deliver essentials, which included groceries. Groceries happens to be a small part of the business for these e-commerce sites, namely Amazon and Flipkart.

The firms that were earlier allowed to deliver non-essential products in orange and green zones. However, large parts of most cities were in the red zone. As a consequence, they remained out of reach for non-essential deliveries. These new guidelines will help the e-commerce sites to reach the metro cities which fall in the red zone. A sizeable amount of people can now buy laptops, mobile phones, and other items for consumption now.

Snapdeal, an online e-commerce website received 75 per cent of its orders on Day 1 of Lockdown 3.0 from orange and green zones and expects increased orders for red zones, as well. Large e-commerce companies were forced to focus on delivering non-essentials only in smaller cities, despite delivery norms being eased during Lockdown 3.0, as major cities continued to be in the red zones. According to industry experts, metros and Tier 1 cities contribute close to 70 per cent of total e-commerce orders. Therefore, with the relaxation in the newer policies, demand is expected to rise in the deliverance of non-essential products, bringing relief to both the producers and the consumers.

These developments are touted to boost the sector which had between stagnant so far. Cab hailing services like Ola and Uber are also said to reopen as they were not in the list of prohibited activities as per the guidelines of the list released by the Ministry.


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