Food delivery workers rue bad customer behaviour

Leah Valentina D’souza | NT

Bengaluru: With the rise in demand for instant food delivery services, many food delivery apps are emerging. But what remains a hidden truth is that the food delivery employees are treated badly and have to negotiate abysmal road conditions while trying to deliver the food on time.

News Trail spoke to a few women employees in Koramangala about the steps being taken by their company to protect them against rains. Usharani said, “They ask us to be safe and carry our raincoats. T hey have a limited number of raincoats. If we are lucky and a matching size is available only then we can use them to protect us from the rains.”

Harsh weat her conditions, long distances and taxing hours are a few of the problems Kalavathi goes through only to get Rs30 per order. The food delivery employees have high-risk jobs and not everyone is provided with insurance. The on-going rains have posed a greater risk to them.

“It becomes very difficult for us to see potholes and humps because of the flooding due to the rains. The bags given to us are of poor quality and do nothing to protect the food packaging from the rains,” says Rashmi, another food delivery girl. Paper packages get wet and destroyed easily which makes customers unhappy.

As a result, the delivery employees are charged twice the price of the order as a penalty. The delivery persons also have to deal with indecent behaviour from the customers. A delivery girl on condition of not disclosing her identity said that while delivering an order to a customer, she was verbally abused, despite her crying and request for proper behaviour.

No action is taken when such cases are reported. But the general public opinion is that food delivery workers should be treated in the same way as traditional employees as they too follow 9 am – 6 pm working hours every day. Occupational safety, lenient delivery timings and companyemployee relations are some measures that the government must address to protect these employees.