Some point out that despite being declared as frontline workers, delivery workers have not received any relief packages from the government.
With petrol prices in Bengaluru inching towards Rs 100 per litre, food delivery executives are finding it harder to earn a decent income. In addition to the increasing fuel prices, some food delivery partners allege that their payouts have been reduced, further reducing their earnings. Petrol prices in Bengaluru, on Thursday, stood at Rs 99.89 per litre. “With this kind of a rise in cost (petrol). it is becoming difficult, especially for those who do this full time. Though the fuel prices have increased, our payouts have only gone down. I work for 15 hours each day, from 7 am to 10 pm, and on an average, including the incentives I get for the number of orders completed, I earn an average of Rs 750 a day. Out of this, I would have spent nearly Rs 300 on petrol, so what I'm left is with just Rs 450. In a city like Bengaluru, is this amount really enough for me to sustain my family?” asks Srinivas, who is a food delivery executive with Zomato. Other food delivery executives complained that though the payouts have been the same for them, they are experiencing a situation where they are not being given orders by their partner app. “Many times, I wait at some locations and I don’t get any orders for more than an hour. The people next to me get orders, but I don’t. I don’t know what the issue is but when we ask the helpline, they ask us to switch locations. With the current fuel prices, if we keep driving around without pay, we won’t be able to survive. I used to earn more than Rs 1,000 a day, just a few months ago, but now, I'm barely able to make Rs 300 a day after paying for fuel. I have to send money to my parents in our village but here, I'm not making enough to even sustain myself,” said Manjunath HN, another executive. He also said that he had bought a scooter on EMI for this work, but hasn’t been able to pay his installments for over three months now. Vinay Sarathy, who is the President of United Food Delivery Partners’ Union (UFDPU), said that they had seen a decrease in the earnings of food delivery executives in the past one and a half months. “We have seen the slashing of pay in rate cards across all such food delivery platforms in the past two months. This, paired with the increased fuel price, is making it very difficult for food delivery executives to make a living. The government has been extremely insensitive about the entire issue,” he said. Speaking about what would help the food delivery executives in this situation, Vinay said, “We have been demanding that the government push these companies to provide better incentives. The other aspect is that the government has declared these executives as frontline workers but they haven’t received even a penny in terms of relief packages. The government should intervene to support the executives and immediately reduce fuel prices for the situation to improve.” Also read: Bengaluru food delivery workers protest for COVID relief package, vaccine priority
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