BENGALURU: A recent viral video of a Zomato delivery agent tampering with the food he was supposed to deliver has been doing the rounds on the internet. The video shows the agent having several spoonfuls of the food before he resealed them and added it back to his delivery bag.
The food aggregator then issued a notice addressing the issue and clarified that the agent was taken off their fleet of agents. Food tampering, however, is not the only issue on the hands of food aggregators. Several delivery drivers tend to violate traffic rules by either skipping a signal or riding on footpaths, driven by extra incentives.
Delivery partners are hired on a part-time or full-time contract basis. In most companies, incentives are received per order and per kilometre. A Swiggy driver who wished to be anonymous said, “We receive Rs 34 for every order under four kilometres, and for orders above five kilometres, we receive up to Rs43. Part-time drivers have a target of 10-15 orders a day, whereas for full-time drivers, it is between 20-25 orders. If we do not achieve the target we do not receive any incentives,” he said.
Agreed an Uber driver who said: “In most cases, due to traffic, we are unable to deliver the food within the estimated time. The faster we deliver, the more orders and incentives we get.”Though verified by companies, the vehicle still belongs to the driver, making them liable for traffic fines.”If we violate any traffic law, then we face the brunt of it,” says another Swiggy driver.
Kasim Raja, assistant commissioner of police traffic (east), said food aggregators do not have any rules and regulations related to safety. “Drivers voluntarily violate rules and are not even provided with vehicles. If it was a company vehicle, we could have held them responsible, but in this case only the owner of the vehicle pays the price,” he said.
According to Swiggy, various factors are taken into consideration to predict the estimated delivery time, including distance between the restaurant and the consumer, time of the day, etc. “While delivery partners are ably supported to meet the committed delivery time, they or the restaurant partners are not penalised for any unforeseen delays in delivery,” said a spokesperson. Uber, however, declined to comment.