Chennai: Over 700 Zomato, Swiggy agents fined in a day for traffic violation

The Greater Chennai Traffic Police (GCTP) on March 30 conducted a special drive targeting food delivery partners found violating traffic rules while on duty. The drive focused particularly on delivery agents not wearing helmets and driving on the wrong side of the road. 

GCTP stated that during this special drive 978 cases were registered and fine amount to the tune of Rs.1,35,400 was collected by it. 

Among the violators, most were from Swiggy and Zomato, two of the biggest online food-every platforms in the country. Swiggy led the charge with 450 cases booked against its delivery agents while Zomato came in second with 278 cases. Other online delivery platforms also got caught up in the drive, Dunzo had 188 cases registered against its delivery agents. 

Rivals Amazon and Flipkart had 8 and 9 cases registered against their agents respectively. Bike taxi app Rapido had 17 cases registered. 

Out of the cases registered against delivery agents, most were for signal violation at 581. 131 and 115 cases were registered for stop line violations and for not wearing helmets respectively. 70 delivery agents were charged with driving on the wrong side of the road while 61 were caught over speeding. 

GCTP explained that this special drive was intended to create awareness and deterrence among the food delivery personnel violating traffic rules, for their safety and the safety of the general public. 

Explaining its reasoning behind conducting the drive, GCTP said that numerous mobile app-based food and grocery delivery services (Zomato, Swiggy, Dunzo etc.) are operating in Chennai City. With the rising popularity, the number of food delivery personnel or food delivery partners engaged by the aggregators has increased manifold.

GCTP stated that most of these mobile app-based food delivery services promise delivery of food in a very short time, pressurising the food delivery partners to drive swiftly. Recently, Zomato had said it will soon launch 'Zomato Instant' for delivery of food within 10 minutes. While start-ups Blinkit and its rival Zepto are already engaged in the 10-minute delivery service. 

GCTP noticed that, due to the nature of payment terms, "most of the food delivery partners were flouting traffic rules like signal violation, wrong side driving, driving without helmet, using mobile handsets while driving, and over speeding in an attempt to earn more by delivering quicker, endangering their lives and the lives of other motorists". 

It further explained that in order to curtail these violations, awareness programmes have been regularly conducted for the food delivery partners with respect to the importance of traffic rules and the penalties for violation of these rules. 

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