After massive rains, now Gurugram unrest affects grocery & food deliveries

New Delhi/Gurugram, Aug 2

The Gurugram unrest, which left employees of several multinational companies, including tech giants, in a panic mode as they worked from home while their children studied online on Wednesday, several residents reported facing disruptions in daily grocery and food delivery orders on both Tuesday and Wednesday.

Both food delivery and e-commerce deliveries were impacted for several users who stayed home.

"It took longer than usual for my online grocery orders to reach home, and some items were not available at the last moment. Some of my friends also reported late or no delivery options on both Zomato and Swiggy in various parts of the city," said Sumit Saxena, a Sector 57 resident.

A sense of fear was also observed among the grocery and food delivery riders who were reluctant to hand over deliveries in sensitive areas in the city.

A Zomato spokesperson told IANS that the company is following government-issued guidelines and will continue to follow those.

"Additionally, for the well-being of our delivery partners, we have an SOS feature on their App, which can be leveraged for emergency support (including ambulance support)," the spokesperson added.

When reached, Swiggy refused to comment on the situation as well as how it is taking care of its riders.

Gurugram residents already faced massive issues with their online deliveries during incessant rains that hit the city in the past few days.

Meanwhile, as several tech companies asked their employees to work from home, as per the directive of the government, some firms sent back their workers home who came to office while several others left offices for home on their own.

"Last two days have been difficult as some of us came to office on August 1 but had to rush back home after hearing news about violence and clashes in nearby sectors," a senior employee with a Big Tech firm told IANS on the condition of anonymity.

"There was utter confusion about schools too but it was later cleared by the administration and schools went in online mode today, which was a respite for us," he added.

Panic gripped the city which is hub to several tech companies, after several shops were attacked as a result of the communal violence in Haryana's Nuh district, with several migrant workers leaving the city in fear.

Companies and factories, including Maruti Suzuki, Hero Motocorp, and Honda, MNCs such as Nestle, Coke and Pepsi, corporate majors like Bharti Airtel, were closely monitoring the law-and-order situation.

Deputy Commissioner Gurugram, Nishant Kumar Yadav, said: "The situation normalized in Sohna and in Gurugram, and on the demand of the Peace Committee, the district administration has permitted the opening of the market in Sohna."