HYDERABAD: Food delivery staff in the city are happy as their earnings have gone up during the lockdown with more of daily business. Yet, worried over the Coronavirus, they are taking all precautions and urging customers to take the delivery at the gate, and not at the doors inside the buildings.
Many cases of Covid-19 are reported from apartments in the second wave and several of their colleagues, they say, have been infected. Delivery boys also request the police not slap them with fine and not seize their bikes during the lockdown period at least.
Swiggy delivery executive Bheravat Santosh Naik said, “During the lockdown, we are getting good money, but many working in the food delivery units are down with the infection. Several of those to whom we deliver food could be infected persons. How do we know? Our appeal to the aggregators is to convince the customers living in apartments to take the order from the gate.”
Santosh said, “In Sainikpuri, there are 600-plus delivery executives just for for Swiggy. We are scared of the infection.”
Jhangir, a Zomato delivery executive, said, “At the food pick-up points, there is no social distancing during the lockdown. Restaurant owners give us a small passage to wait and pick our deliveries. All the boys form into a crowd, thus, and this is risky. No safety for us, but if we don’t work, our families will not be able to live.”
“In Himayathnagar, there are more than 500 Zomato delivery staff. Since the lockdown, more orders are flowing and the company is hiring more boys. These companies, when they hire, must ask for an RT-PCR test certificate, so the others around will feel safe,” he said.
Durgesh Raj, with Zomato for two years, said, “We work non-stop for 12 hours. Only then can we can make a decent sum. We are moving on bike, our spines will be taking the extra burden, and many customers behave rudely with us.”
“Police stop us and ask us to pay for previous challan(s), if one or more are pending, and they seize the vehicles. At least for this period of the lockdown, the police should leave us alone. We all come from humble backgrounds. A thousand rupees is a lot, and not easy to arrange.”
The Telangana Gig and Platform Union has given a representation to the aggravators for bringing food delivery boys into the insurance bracket.
