BENGALURU: A considerable number of women in Bengaluru have approached Swiggy expressing their keenness to become delivery executives. As a result, the food delivery platform is now putting in place infrastructure to bring women into its workforce, its top executives said on Wednesday.
Briefing mediapersons after launching a programme ‘safety first’ for its delivery partners in the city, Sachin Kotangale, vice-president-Operations, said, “We inducted women as delivery executives in Kochi, Pune, Ahmedabad and Nagpur four months ago and recently in Mumbai. A little over 100 of our delivery staff across the country are women and 10% of the leaders in our operations team across the country are women. We have received inquiries from women in Bengaluru who are keen on taking up the delivery role.”
Swiggy is working on creating a safe environment for women before bringing them on board, Rahul Bothra, Chief Financial Officer, said. “We need to incorporate it in our standard operating procedure as well as create separate toilet facilities for women. Maybe by this year-end, we will have women delivery executives on board,” he added.The company presently permits women to deliver orders only before 6pm and in identified ‘safe zones’, the CFO added.
Safety programme
The ‘safety first’ programme for its delivery agents was launched on Wednesday with the signing of an MoU with Round Table India and Young Indians (part of the Confederation of Indian Industry), which aims to make roads safe for both delivery partners and citizens.“Swiggy’s fleet of delivery partners travel hundreds of kilometres each day, as they deliver food across Bengaluru. This initiative is aimed towards making roads safer for them and the wider community,” Kotangale said.Swiggy has 70,000 delivery partners across 22 cities with around 12,000 in Bengaluru.