Mumbai, June 24 (IANS) Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday met the Amazon Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Andy Jassy and said that they discussed on how Maharashtra is India’s technology capital and Amazon is the integral partner in the state’s digital transformation journey.

“It was a great pleasure to meet and welcome the CEO of Amazon in Mumbai today. I re-appreciated how Amazon chose Mumbai for its first Indian cloud infrastructure region back in June 2016. Since then Maharashtra and Amazon’s partnership has only deepened over the last decade. I was glad to know about the progress of the projects announced via MoU with Amazon Web Services (AWS) at Davos in 2025 — an $8.3 billion expansion in Maharashtra — Amazon’s biggest single-state commitment — generating 83,100 jobs in India,” the Chief Minister said in his post on social media platform X.

According to Chief Minister Fadnavis, “Amazon has robust physical infrastructure in our state with six fulfilment centres and more than 200 delivery stations for serving the people across India and world. More than 22,000 entrepreneurs and small businesses are exporting to customers across the world with Thane, Mumbai, Pune, and Kolhapur ranking among India’s top 50 exporting cities on Amazon.”

“I also appreciate Amazon’s social commitment for Maharashtra’s environment — including a Rs 10 crore investment in the Vaitarna hydrobasin expected to replenish 1.3 billion litres of water annually and benefit 700 farmers; planting 300,000 trees in the Western Ghats, and investing $1.2 million to restore flamingo habitats around Thane Creek and skilling lakhs of youth for Maharashtra’s future workforce. Look forward to collaborate more for even greater work,” he noted.

The Amazon CEO’s visit comes at a time when the e-commerce giant is going through one of its most contested periods yet, as homegrown quick-commerce rivals Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart and Walmart-owned Flipkart aggressively expand their dark-store networks to capture a larger share of the country’s fast-growing online grocery market.

The company said on Wednesday that it plans to expand Amazon Now, its ultra-fast delivery service, to more than 300 cities across India as it seeks to build what it describes as the country’s largest “delivery in minutes” network.

–IANS

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