Food delivery apps warned of severe consequences for traffic violations by Mumbai Police

In the last few years, India has witnessed the emergence of a new trend, where 'eating in' has been gradually overriding dining out habits of customers.

Thanks to food delivery apps such as Swiggy and Zomato. They have become hot favourites and go to apps for fast-food restaurants and chains in most of the cities in the country.

To reach out to more customers, food tech delivery apps have also been offering fast time-bound delivery or refund offer, which means delivery employees or boys of these firms have to be in a tearing hurry to meet their targets.

And most of the time the process leads to rash, negligent driving and accident.

Mumbai traffic police, taking note of such incidents, has summoned the executives of food delivery apps such as Swiggy, Zomato and UberEats.

These firms will be briefed about the traffic rules and how the delivery boys were violating them.

"We are flooded with complaints of traffic violations by delivery boys of online food delivery firms like Swiggy, Zomato and UberEats, " said Amitesh Kumar, Joint Commissioner of police, Mumbai Traffic told Mumbai Mirror.

This is not the first instance, where food tech delivery firms have been notified for road rules violation by their delivery boys.

This time they might face severe consequences if they fail to adhere to the norms. "We will write to the RTO for cancelling their licences if they continue to ignore the law," Kumar added.

Another traffic police officer pointed out that food delivery companies have to be realistic while serving customers.

Police also asked these apps to think and set realistic targets for their delivery employees, who put their lives on danger. In 2018, a Swiggy delivery boy died in an accident in Jogeshwari.

In last December Swiggy, which runs with tagline lightening fast, started time-bound 30 minutes delivery or refund. This puts pressure on its delivery staffs, who are mostly given salary on an incentive-based after meeting targets. Though, the above-mentioned service is not live in Mumbai.

To meet the target, many times they violate traffic rules and illegally park their vehicles, said a Mumbai police officer. The traffic police have also started booking their illegally parked bikes under traffic violation-related legal provisions.

Zomato, Swiggy, and UberEats have not yet reacted to the development.