A netizen is seeking roll back of the 10 minute delivery feature on Swiggy, Dunzo, Zepto and Grofers

Mar 1, 2022, 08:56 IST

BCCL

A netizen has gone a step ahead to launch an online petition to force these companies to roll back their ambitious 10 minute delivery project.
Shaik Salauddin, head of an organization of app-based workers, the delivery partners are under immense pressure to make deliveries under 10 minutes.
To avoid bad reviews or penalties, the delivery partners are forced to resort to breaking traffic rules and over-speeding.

Even though the craze of 10 minute delivery peaked among Indian startups last year, several critics have questioned whether this is really something that the customers want. Social media has been filled with such critics who have been raising voices against the quick commerce project led by several tech companies including Swiggy, Zomato-backed Blinkit (formerly Grofers), Reliance-backed Dunzo and Zepto.

Now, a netizen has gone a step ahead to launch an online petition to force these companies to roll back their ambitious 10 minute delivery project, saying that it was “never the need of the consumer”. “Everyone was doing just fine by getting their groceries delivered in bulk in a day or two, or buying them from their neighbourhood Kirana store,” the petitioner said, highlighting that this just fuels impulse buying and does very little to “safeguard the delivery partner”.

“I opened my door and saw the delivery boy drenched, his raincoat muddy. He handed me my order, and started limping towards the stairs. I asked him what was wrong, so he told me he had been in a minor accident. The reason? He was speeding to deliver my order in under 10 minutes,” the person wrote in the petition. Business Insider was able to verify the petitioner.

Shaik Salauddin, the national general secretary of Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT), in a conversation with Business Insider too confirmed that these types of incidents are pretty common in the 10 minute delivery scenario. He emphasised that the delivery partners are under immense pressure to make deliveries under 10 minutes or else they will be penalised.

To avoid bad reviews or penalties, the delivery partners are forced to resort to breaking traffic rules and over-speeding that does make them more prone to accidents, Salauddin added. The larger problem here is that there is no clarity on what the company’s plan of action would be in case a partner is injured while making deliveries.

“Jaan ka khatra hai. Essential kya zaroorat hai pehle meri baat company se yeh hai. Agar aap delivery 10 minute mein nahi kar rahe toh kisiki jaan jane walli hai vahan pe? Aisa toh koi product grocery toh nahi hai na ki agar nahi hai toh jaan chale jati. [This endangers lives. I would first like to ask them what essential products are they delivering? It’s not like someone would lose their life if they don’t get that product or grocery within 10 minutes],” he added.

He specified the following problems that the delivery partners face while making delivery in 10 minutes.

Stage	Issue
Order pick up	The store, where the order has to be picked up from, may be crowded or may not have certain items of the bulk order.
Route	In order to make up for the time lost while picking up the order, the driver would have to break traffic rules by driving on the wrong route or over speeding. Apart from the life threat, this also leads to traffic penalties that the partner would have to pay later.
Issues at customers end	Several times the drop location is not correct and the partner has to check with the customer repeatedly to reach the right spot. On the side, several localities don’t allow delivery partners to use the lift and force them to use the stairs instead. Several times, customers also ask delivery partners to pick up other items like cigarette, drinks on their way, which makes it hard for partners to meet their target.

"Our network design ensures stores are located within 2 kms of the customer. With this density of stores, our partners don’t need to break any traffic rules to deliver orders under 10 minutes and we don’t incentivise them on speed of delivery at all. We also provide medical and life insurance cover to all our delivery partners in case of a rare unfortunate incident," Blinkit has assured. Business Insider has reached out to Swiggy, Dunzo and Zepto for their comments on the online petition.

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