"The next thing he knew, Himanshu Pal, 21, stood there, helpless, looking over the body of his colleague, rammed by a car. His friend, Ankush, was just 18, and just out of high school, Pal told Al Jazeera. It was Ankush's first day in a metropolitan city, after he came from his village in eastern Bihar, more than 1,000km (600 miles) away; he rented a cheap electric bike and signed up with Swiggy, one of India's quick commerce giants."
"Ankush packed his first order and tried to figure out how to reach the location mandatorily within 10 minutes when Pal held his hand and showed him the way around the app. He was trying his best: looking at the phone, then on the road, a customer calling back; then on the phone, a traffic light, and then on the road again, Pal recalled, from October last year."
A young delivery rider, newly arrived from a village, died after being struck by a car while attempting to meet a mandatory 10-minute delivery target. Rapid-delivery platforms such as Swiggy, Zomato, Zepto, Flipkart Minutes and Amazon Tez have driven intense competition by promising extremely fast deliveries. Riders, often young migrants on cheap electric bikes, face algorithmic pressure, tight time targets, customer callbacks and traffic hazards. Accidents and inadequate protections force colleagues to crowdfund for medical transport. The government instructed companies to curb 10-minute promises citing worker safety and welfare, but weak enforcement and market incentives make compliance uncertain.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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