TIRUCHY: While orders for doorstep food delivery witnessed an increase during the lockdown on Sunday, as was expected, delivery personnel mentioned no sharp rise in individual deliveries, pointing to more of them being on duty, unlike other days.
According to Shankar, who is a full-time delivery staffer for a food aggregator, in place of the usual 50 personnel, nearly 100 were on Sunday doing the rounds in the area around the bus stand.
"Usually the part-timers work on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, during peak delivery timings. However, not all part-timers turn on the app (notify their availability to deliver food) every weekend; sometimes they go on leave. But today, almost all of them were online since morning," Shankar said.
“We expected to make more delivery orders today and earn more. However, it is just like any other Sunday, as the orders are distributed," he added.
On the other hand, for several part-timers the Sunday lockdown translated to some increase in individual deliveries. Aarif, a delivery staffer with another food aggregator, told TNIE, "Double orders (pick-up at the same restaurant for two different customers) are not that common, but today I had already done two of them." He was around noontime picking up two orders at a restaurant on Sastri Road.
Recalling the total lockdown last year, Prasanth, another delivery personnel, said, "Back then there was a great surge in those taking up this job. Still we were getting so many orders. Probably back then, many didn't feel like going out for groceries, vegetables or meat the previous day. Now the orders aren't that high, but the number of people who have switched on the app has doubled today."