BENGALURU: Amazon India is piloting women-only deliveries in Chennai and Kerala to create more jobs in an otherwise male-dominated field. The programme was debuted in January in Kerala and extended to Chennai on Thursday.The women will deliver packages to offices within 2-3 km of the delivery station on two-wheelers. They will deliver around 40 packages a day in multiple trips.“Our research has showed that a lot of women are interested to do deliveries and we are ready to break barriers as long as the customer experience is not subdued,” said Samuel Thomas, director of transportation, Amazon India.“Through this initiative, we have taken the lead to engage with women, create unique relevant job opportunities and enable them to be achievers in this field.”He said they will also manage and run dedicated delivery stations and their tasks will be similar to those of male counterparts. “We have identified the two pilot locations in Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai based on the local interest we received from the women in these cities,” he said.The company is planning to open a third station in Kochi in April. “Taking into consideration safety measures, they have a work window between 7 am to 7 pm and there is a helpline number that these associates can dial in anytime for support,” said Thomas.The ecommerce company has trained over 20 women under the project and plans to train two to three more every month. “We look for basic qualifica- tions — whether they can ride twowheelers and read and write English,” said Divya Syam, who heads the delivery station in Thiruvananthapuram.“We have noticed that women are more patient and dedicated when it comes to delivering goods compared with men,” said Syam, who has seven delivery women under her charge.According to company officials, delivery staff of both genders draw the same salary. Average monthly pay is Rs 12,000, excluding incentives, experts said.Inspired by her son who is a delivery man for Amazon, Srikumari S Rajkumar, joined in January. “My day starts at 8 am and I finish by 4 pm, which also gives me ample time to do household work and tailoring,” said Rajkumar, 42, who works at the Thiruvananthapuram delivery station. She starts her day by sorting shipments and then hops onto her Honda Activa.“Customers are surprised when they see me at their doorstep and some women in my neighbourhood have asked me if there are vacancies for them,” said Rajkumar.Industry experts said this is one way ecommerce companies can meet personnel shortages. Online retail in India is expected to account for 3% of total retail by 2020, according to a PwC report. Further, orders per million are expected to more than double from five million in 2013 to 12 million by 2016.