CHENNAI: The Greater Chennai Police collected a cumulative penalty of more than 1.35 lakh from delivery partners of app-based food and grocery enterprises in 978 cases of traffic rules violation in a single day earlier this week, it said.
The police took action against the delivery personnel of popular food aggregators like Zomato, Swiggy, and Dunzo under a special enforcement drive on March 30. The drive was aimed at curtailing traffic rules violations, the police said.
The action against the delivery personnel came a week after Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal announced the company’s plan to offer 10-minute express food delivery to its customers, which has drawn criticism from several restaurants and consumers over the quality of food and safety of delivery partners.
Out of a total of 978 cases of traffic rules violation, a maximum of 450 penalties were issued against delivery partners of Swiggy, 278 of Zomato, 188 of Dunzo, and 62 penalties against delivery personnel of other companies, as per the police.
In a release, Chennai City Police said, “It is notice that most of these mobile app based food delivery services promise delivery of food at a very short time, pressurising the food delivery partners to drive swiftly.”
“It is also noticed that due to the nature of payment terms, most of the food delivery partners are 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 noted.
Out of total traffic violation case recorded on March 30, 581 cases were for signal violation, followed by 131 for stop line rule violation and 113 for driving without helmet.