NEW DELHI: E-commerce giant Amazon has announced a major expansion of its operations network in India ahead of the festive shopping season, launching 20 new fulfilment centres, six sort centres and 150 last-mile delivery stations across the country.

The expansion is part of Amazon India's investment of more than ?2,800 crore to strengthen its operations infrastructure and technology. The company said the move will increase its total storage capacity in India by 50% to 64 million cubic feet and expand its reach across metro as well as Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.

Seven of the new fulfilment centres and all six new sort centres are being established in non-metro locations. Amazon is also opening its first fulfilment centres in Raipur, Ranchi and Varanasi, while new sort centres are coming up in Chikkaballapur, Hassan, Meerut, Ramanagar, Raipur and Varanasi.

The six new sort centres will increase Amazon's total sortation area by 25% from 2.4 million square feet to 3 million square feet. Meanwhile, the 150 new last-mile delivery stations will cover 118 cities, including 12 locations where Amazon is establishing a delivery station for the first time.

Amazon said its expanded infrastructure will bring seller inventory closer to customers and help handle higher order volumes during the festive season. The company added that its network expansion has enabled same-day delivery to reach 30% more cities over the past year.

The company has also created more than 1.6 lakh seasonal work opportunities across 400 cities to support order fulfilment, packaging, shipping and last-mile delivery during the festive period.