In the past few months, we have seen several media articles related to food or grocery delivery boys breaking rules. They often do this because they have been given a limited amount of time to deliver the order. Well, Bengaluru’s traffic cops have had enough and they will now start catching such delivery boys who are breaking rules.
Traffic Police Chief, B R Ravikanthe Gowda said, “We will soon start issuing them notices. The problem has become too serious to be ignored. Delivery boys suffer from low concentration levels. We made it clear that they should be given at least 15 minutes more to deliver packages”
He revealed that the most common laws that such delivery guys break are driving on the wrong side, driving rashly, overspeeding and driving on the footpath, jumping the signal etc. All of this can be life-threatening. The delivery boys do this to save time and take shortcuts. So, the traffic cops will be conducting special drives to clamp down on speeding delivery boys.
Zepto Now which is a grocery delivery application has said that they have not received any advisory or directive from the police. They added, “We have recorded significantly lower traffic violations on average, compared to other e-commerce platforms. After doing millions of deliveries in Bengaluru, we have had zero serious accidents to this day.”
Anand Mahindra agrees
Tata Memorial director Pramesh CS tweeted that it is inhuman to give delivery guys a 10 minute delivery time. He said, “I don’t care how many trolls I get with this tweet, but the 10 minute delivery for grocery is just inhuman to the delivery person. Just stop it! Customers can live with a 2 or even a 6 hour delivery time.”
To this, Anand Mahindra simply said “I agree”. Then Aadit Palicha who is the CEO of Zepto Now said that their 10 minute delivery time is about the short distances and not about delivering at high speeds. The average distance of Zepto’s delivery is 1.8 km which takes 10 minutes to cover if the rider travels at the speed of 15 kmph. Because of this, Zepto has 3 times lower accident rates. After reading this, Anand Mahindra said that it is only fair to hear another point of view.
In India, there are now many new start-up applications and organizations that are pushing for quicker delivery times. Now, the organizations are facing backlash because of the limited amount, the delivery boy has to ride harder and faster. They often end up breaking rules and driving dangerously. Chennai police revealed that the delivery executives make the highest number of violations and pay lakhs of rupees in challans.
The delivery guys are being given a daily target. The goods need to be delivered at a specific time. If it gets delayed then the next order gets delayed and then it becomes difficult to complete the daily target. Zomato also faced criticism recently when they announced Zomato Instant. To this, Zomato’s CEO, Deepinder Goyal announced that Zomato will not mention the expected delivery time to the drivers.
Keyword: Bengaluru traffic cops to start catching speeding delivery boys