Despite low demand during the lockdown, food delivery agents have been working non-stop and earning close to nothing.

For the last two months, Kapil (name changed) has seen his earnings as a delivery executive with a popular food-delivery service in Bengaluru dry up. Earning close to Rs 1,000 per day before the lockdown, on completion of over 12 trips, he says that for the last many weeks, he has struggled to make Rs 1,000 per week. Food delivery agents and those working with e-commerce portals have been working to deliver ‘essential’ commodities through this period.

Drivers employed with cab-aggregator platforms have not logged into their apps since 24 March, when the national lockdown was first announced. No trips means no earnings for these ‘driver-partners’. With no fixed wages and incentives, they are still not recognised as employees of the firms they are working to Read More