New Delhi: Despite their inclusion in the exempt category in the lockdown order issued by the National Disaster Management Authority, e-commerce delivery firms such as Amazon, Flipkart, Grofers and others are grappling with the issue of safety of their delivery staff to begin home supplies of essential items to their customers.
While Flipkart, owned by Walmart Inc of USA, has paused all the orders and was expected to resume taking orders sometime tonight, Amazon has asked the authorities to provide it with a detailed on-ground operating procedure to ensure the safety of its delivery staff.
Another e-commerce player Grofers said it was closely working with the authorities to resume home delivery of essentials as a lot of vulnerable sections of society were dependant on it for home delivery of essentials.
“We have been assured of the safe and smooth passage of our supply chain and delivery executives by local law enforcement authorities and are resuming our grocery & essentials services later today,” e-commerce giant Flipkart told ETV Bharat.
“We will leverage our efficient and robust delivery network to make products available to customers across the country and support the nation in this time of crisis through the sanitized and safe supply chain,” said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart Group.
World’s largest e-Commerce firm Amazon said it appreciated the fact that the government has recognised e-commerce as essential to help citizens remain at home and maintain social distancing.
“We are working with the central government and local authorities, asking them to help us urgently with detailed on-ground operating procedures, to ensure delivery of priority goods like household staples, health and hygiene products, sanitizers, baby formula, and medical supplies to our customers without any disruption,” Amazon India said in a statement sent to ETV Bharat.
Flipkart’s ‘Paused But Not For Long’, notice was still visible on the company’s website (www.flipkart.com) at around 10.00 PM on Wednesday night despite the company’s statement to the media that it will resume delivery later today.
Also, the attempts by ETV Bharat’s journalist to get essential items delivered to the company’s New Delhi office for the next two days were not accepted by Amazon.
Similarly, the delivery of essential items to ETV’s New Delhi office through Grofers was not available before April 6.
In a statement sent to ETV Bharat, Grofers said local authorities were helping the platform to resume its operations as due to hiccups faced by the company, it has accumulated the backlog of about 4 lakh orders on its platform.
"Over the last few days, we faced a few hiccups in our operations which led to a backlog of around 4 lakh orders," said Albinder Dhindsa, CEO and Founder of Grofers in a statement sent to ETV Bharat.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has asked the companies to allow their employees to work from home during the lockdown period.
In addition to local grocery stores, it also included e-commerce companies in the list of those services that are exempt from the NDMA’s lockdown order as a large number of middle class working people and professionals have come to rely upon e-commerce platforms such as Big Basket, Grofers and others for supply of groceries to their doorsteps.
Though, the union minister Prakash Javadekar today rejected the reports of difficulties faced by the delivery staff of e-commerce companies, the strict implementation of lockdown orders has led to the suspension of home deliveries by them.
While Flipkart and Amazon India refused to divulge the number of their pending orders to ETV Bharat, Grofers confirmed that it had 4 lakh pending orders following the prohibitory orders issued by the government to contain the outbreak of coronavirus in the country.
“We are working round the clock to support people who are relying highly on our services and are waiting for the essential supplies at their homes,” said Albinder Dhindsa, CEO of Grofers.
“We understand that a lot of vulnerable sections of our society are highly dependent on our services and we take this responsibility very seriously,” he said.
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