Access to lifts rare, say delivery agents after Zomato CEO post

Gurgaon: After Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal and his wife, who were working as delivery agents for a day, were denied the use of a passenger lift in Ambience Mall, the commercial property's owner reached out to them and agreed to introduce a food pick-up point there.Goyal posted a video on Sunday, showing how he had to climb three flights of stairs at the mall after being denied access to lifts because they were "not meant for delivery partners". Even after reaching the third floor, the delivery partners were not allowed to enter the restaurant and had to wait on the stairs to receive their orders. "During my second order, I realised that we need to work with malls more closely to improve working conditions for all delivery partners. And malls also need to be more humane to delivery partners," Goyal wrote on his X account on Sunday.In another post on Monday, Goyal said the owner of Ambience Mall, Arjun, had reached out to address the situation by establishing pick-up points for all delivery partners."Thanks Arjun (owner of Ambience) for noticing my post and taking quick action. He's also agreed to let us deploy some ‘walkers' inside the mall to quickly shuttle the food from the restaurant to these pickup points…" Goyal wrote in his latest post, urging other malls and commercial establishments to treat delivery partners with respect.Asked about the challenges, delivery partners in the city told TOI that they are often denied access to the main lifts and told to use "service lifts" instead.Nawal, a delivery partner, said he was assaulted by some drunk men in Sector 102 two days ago. "I took the delivery there in time and called them. They asked me to stay outside. They collected the order and started threatening me. They denied payment, snatched my mobile phone and the keys of my bike. It was after midnight, and I was scared. They told me I didn't matter to anyone and if I am assaulted here, nobody would care," Nawal said.Another delivery executive said he was denied entry at another mall and had to wait outdoors in the heat to get his order. "A lot of time is often wasted while waiting for service lifts. When regular people in normal clothes arrive, they are allowed to use them, but when they see us in our company T-shirts and bags, we are told to wait. This often leads to penalties because our pickups are delayed," he said.The Gig Workers Association, which has previously raised this issue, emphasised that every society, mall and office should eliminate any form of discrimination or divide."Delivery workers who form the backbone of the e-commerce industry deserve fairer treatment. As human beings, we all deserve dignity, and workers should not be penalised for doing their jobs. Most apartment blocks have single service lift, which is often occupied for long periods. This makes it practically impossible for gig workers to provide timely services," said Nitesh Das, organising secretary of the association.