Gurugram mall responds as Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal finds unsuitable conditions

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal went ‘undercover’ as a delivery partner in Gurugram over the weekend to better understand the working conditions faced by staff. The businessman shared a video compilation of his ‘inhumane’ experience at Ambience Mall — from being forced to climb multiple flights of stairs to ‘sneaking in’ while the guards took a break in order to collect the food. A follow up post on Monday indicated that the mall authorities had taken note of criticism and made several changes to accomodate delivery personnel.
“Ambience Mall has already responded to the situation, and created a comfortable online food delivery pick up point for all delivery partners. Thanks Arjun (owner of Ambience) for noticing my post and taking quick action. He’s also agreed to let us deploy some ‘walkers’ inside the mall to quickly shuttle the food from the restaurant to these pickup points to hand over the food to delivery partners,” Goyal wrote on Monday afternoon.
The Zomato CEO and his wife had earlier taken on the role of delivery partners in Gurugram to acquire a first-hand experience of the many challenges faced by employees.
“During my second order, I realised that we need to work with malls more closely to improve working conditions for all delivery partners. And malls also need to be more humane to delivery partners,” he recounted on X while sharing video footage of the experience.
Goyal recalled taking the stairs to the third floor after realising that delivery partners were not allowed to enter the mall and had to wait at the stairs to receive orders. He added that he was finally able to sneak in to collect the order when the staircase guard “took a small break”.
Delivery personnel face a slew of difficulties while executing their jobs — from unwieldy restaurants and customers to harsh weather conditions and traffic accidents. An unrelated incident from neighbouring Delhi on Monday saw a 27-year-old food delivery agent mowed down by a speeding vehicle as he crossed the road. 
Police officials said an initial probe suggested that the accident took place when the Zomato employee parked his motorcycle and began crossing the road on foot. He was hit by a vehicle and the driver immediately fled the spot.
(With inputs from agencies)