When foot soldiers of e-commerce yearn for a morsel

The urban online ecosystem was in frenzy this week. A video was doing the rounds on social media platforms and gathered momentum within minutes. It showed a food parcel delivery executive, his T-shirt and bag giving away the popular name Zomato, opening food packets which he was to deliver to customers, helping himself to some food from each of them, resealing and placing them back in his delivery bag. Those who were to be delivered the packets in Madurai received less than the quantities they were supposed to – perhaps with a dash of a stranger’s jhoota.

Given the large and growing base of food delivery apps in cities, this led to an uproar on social media. A few users of that particular delivery app railed at how they had been occasionally getting less food in their boxes, others lamented at the seemingly incurable stealing streak among Indians (yeah, social media comments do not consider the niceties of social science research and its methodologies before drawing conclusions), and others felt varying twinges of regret at the fate of such delivery executives.

Given that lakhs of food parcels get delivered in cities across India – this company itself hires nearly 1.5 lakh delivery partners – cases of their executives stealing food must form a tiny portion of their overall business. Else, there would have been uproar by now.

Zomato took prompt notice, said in a statement that “it takes these kinds of reports extremely seriously…and will soon introduce tamper-proof tapes and other precautionary measures to add an extra layer of safeguard against such behaviour” and encouraged its customers “to report the smallest of deviations”.

This may be a rare instance but it’s a good entry point into the underside of the gig economy sweeping across urban India. Lakhs of young men (and some women), largely under-educated and under-skilled or non-skilled, forming the last-mile link between e-commerce and customers, putting in flexible (sometimes long) hours, earning more than their backgrounds had promised (average earnings for delivery executives range anywhere from ₹12,000 to ₹40,000 a month), but spending hours on bikes, racing against time to deliver parcels, doing contract jobs without job security or career growth, working without insurance and other benefits, and so on.

Just as the burgeoning mall culture provided low-skill or no-skill jobs to young lower-class Indians years ago, e-commerce is doing now.

This is informal urban economy at its best and its worst – best in that it offers a section of Indians a way out of their poverty, lack of education and debt; worst in that it encourages a work culture in which the informal supports and feeds the formal economy but it remains unregulated and unstructured. This means its workers can rarely claim the benefits of full employment.

The research on gig economies in cities across the world – delivery executives, ride-hailing or ride-sharing apps, food and home services to list a few – has pointed to the social costs borne by those at the bottom of the chain. And it has called for formalising these services as well as skilling the people. Food delivery executives in Indian cities saw an enormous rise in their earnings last year. That came from the boom in that space worth $700 million last year, according to consultancy firms; it is projected to grow three times in the next three years. There is no doubt that the gig economy is here to stay and helps keep unemployment levels down to an extent, but there’s a yawning gap between what it offers to skilled workers at the upper levels and what its foot soldiers take home.

The Zomato delivery executive was taken off the platform. Some will say he deserved to be. What do we know about his life circumstances that led him to steal food? Did he do too many deliveries that day and did not have time to eat? Did he steal because his very modest income was not sufficient? Did he spend all or most of it on his family’s multiple needs? His behaviour was inexcusable indeed; he should have shown more scruples. But, then, maintaining or preaching morality comes easier on a full stomach.

First Published: Dec 13, 2018 00:30 IST