Govt rejects the reports of harassment of delivery staff of e-commerce firms

“There are over 700 districts in the country and it might have happened in one or two districts,” Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister for information and broadcasting said in response to a question about alleged harassment of delivery staff of e-commerce firms such as Grofers, Amazon and Flipkart by local law enforcement agencies.

New Delhi: The Union government Wednesday rejected the claim that delivery teams of e-commerce players such as Amazon, Flipkart, Grofers or others have been facing any problem due to the 21 days lockdown imposed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus.

In response to a question, Prakash Javadekar, union minister for information and broadcasting, said there might be some isolated instances but deliveries by e-commerce firms have been taking place in several districts across the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself assured in his televised address that the delivery of essential items will be fully ensured by the Central and state governments, said the minister.

“There are over 700 districts in the country and it might have happened in one or two districts,” he said in response to a question about alleged harassment of delivery staff of e-commerce firms such as Grofers, Amazon and Flipkart by local law enforcement agencies as the Prime Minister has asked the states to strictly enforce the lockdown orders.

The union minister for information and broadcasting said that the media shows the story when deliveries do not take place but not when the deliveries do take place.

“Prime Minister has already said that these shops, grocery stores will remain open, there is no need for panic buying,” said Union Minister Prakash Javadekar following a meeting of the Union Cabinet in New Delhi.

“It is not like that these shops will not open after today,” he said while underscoring the need for observing the social distancing norms at the time of visiting local grocery shops.

e-Commerce firms suspend deliveries

Despite the claim by union minister Prakash Javadekar, a small survey by ETV Bharat revealed that e-Commerce firms have either temporarily suspended their complete operations including essential items or they were not accepting orders for deliveries in this month.

In a message flashed on its website (www.flipkart.com), the e-Commerce giant owned by the US company Walmart Inc. said it was temporarily suspending its operations.

“Paused. But Not For Long! We are temporarily suspending our services,” said Flipkart on its website.

“We Will Be Back Up Soon,” said the company.

While global e-Commerce giant Amazon (www.amazon.in) said: “To serve customers' most urgent needs while also ensuring the safety of our associates, we are prioritizing all our resources to serve that are currently high priority for our customers.”

“Other products are temporarily unavailable for purchase,” said the company.

Grofers (www.grofers.com), another e-Commerce player said on its website: “We will be back shortly. Please click below to get notified when we start accepting more orders.”

(Report by Krishnanand Tripathi)