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.
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“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 Amazon’s 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.
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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.