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A portrait of the deliveryman as a human being

Organising themselves like the Dabbawalas of Mumbai could do wonders for the pay and status of delivery people

Suveen Sinha
Delivery
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Some delivery people might request you to get into confirmations and cancellations so they can make an extra hundred rupees

On the evening of January 8, 2022, Delhi’s streets were deserted. The third wave of Covid-19 was rising and a weekend lockdown was in place. It was anyway not a great Saturday evening to step out: unseasonal rains had made it unusually chilly and damp. In the spirit of the new metropolitan India, food orders were pouring in at online delivery platforms.
One of those orders pinged Salil Tripathi’s phone as he sat astride his motorcycle, parked on a street side. As Tripathi took out his phone, an SUV driven by a drunk policeman rammed into him. The impact threw him up in the air and killed him instantaneously.
Several reports, especially a particularly poignant one in the South China Morning Post, painted a moving portrait of Tripathi. Covid-19 converted him from a restaurant manager into a delivery “executive”. His son, said the SCMP report, was expelled from a private school because the delivery “executive
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Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www-business-standard-com-nalsar.knimbus.com or the Business Standard newspaper

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First Published: Apr 27 2023 | 9:59 PM IST

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