Mumbai's warehouse hub Bhiwandi also becomes the new job hub

August 18, 2020: Bhiwandi, the warehouse hub and suburb of Mumbai with hundreds of godowns of online retailers like Flipkart, Amazon, Reliance Retail and Jiomart, has become the new job hub as e-retailers opened new roles and people are not able to travel to the city from the suburbs.

"A consultant who hires manpower for Flipkart and Reliance Retail, which has brands like Reliance Fresh, Reliance Smart, JioMart, Reliance Digital and Trends Footwear, said that he had hired around 2,500 people from several suburbs near Bhiwandi in the past few months. Several of our staff had left initially due to the pandemic and several people could not continue to travel to Mumbai from suburbs due to unavailability of trains," reports Mumbai Mirror.

Amazon itself has seven warehouses comprising 1.5 million cubic feet of storage space in Bhiwandi. The storage space is the third-largest in India, after Hyderabad and Bangalore. In May 2020, Amazon India opened close to 50,000 seasonal roles in fulfilment centres and delivery network across the country.

Pharma companies, retailers, electronic stores, plastic product sellers and even smaller players have also started to rent godowns in Bhiwandi to store their material as storage in the city is costlier.

Recently, Robinsons Global Logistics Solutions announced that it has set up a new 1,50,000 sq ft warehousing facility, which includes 25,000 sq ft of temperature controlled area with a spectrum of +4 to -25 degree Celsius, at Bhiwandi.

In July, Welspun One Logistics Parks (WOLP) has launched its maiden 110 acre Grade A warehousing park with a leasable area of 3.2 million square feet with an estimated investment of Rs 900 crore in Bhiwandi.