Instruct delivery hands not to use bikes as taxis: Delhi govt to ecommerce companies

This comes in the aftermath of food delivery companies such as Swiggy and Zomato flagging their last-mile operators being issued challans by local authorities.

ET reported on Thursday that delivery executives plying two-wheelers on Delhi roads were facing disruptions in the backdrop of a state government notification that bike taxi operations were illegal.

“We are not catching anyone operating in the food delivery and e-commerce sector,” Ashish Kundra, principal secretary and commissioner, transport department, Delhi, told ET. “If there have been any incidents of food delivery workers being given challans, they might have been doubling up as bike taxis, which is not legal.”

The state transport department is likely to send a letter to all e-commerce and food delivery companies by the end of Friday, Kundra added.

In a letter to Kundra on Tuesday, Bengaluru-based Swiggy’s group vice-president public policy Dinker Vashisht said that the recent directions on two-wheelers “have been misrepresented by the RTO (regional transport office) officials, who have started issuing challans to delivery partners despite the fact that they have not been in violation of the direction of the notification.”

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“This has led to disruption of services and confusion among the delivery partners, who are now apprehensive of providing their services with fear of being penalised and harassed while on duty,” Vashisht wrote.An executive at a food-delivery platform, who spoke to ET on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged double-hatting, or delivery partners working with multiple companies simultaneously, but said that it was difficult for platforms to ensure this did not happen.

“These are gig workers, and by nature of this job, we cannot keep a tab or investigate what they do when they are not delivering for us,” the executive said.

Last Monday, the Delhi government issued a public notice asking bike taxi operators such as Uber, Ola and Rapido to stop their two-wheeler taxi operations in the national capital. The transport department had cautioned bike taxis against plying on the roads, saying it was a violation of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, that would make aggregators liable for a fine of Rs 1 lakh.

Following the public notice, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) also urged the Delhi government to not penalise drivers and ride-hailing companies, pointing out that the central government’s motor vehicle aggregator guidelines issued in 2020 encourages the use of non-transport vehicles – or those with white number plates – by aggregators.

The Delhi government has yet to release the final version of its draft aggregator policy, which has been in the works for over a year.

Following the public notice, Delhi transport minister Kailash Gahlot had said that companies could apply for a new licence under the proposed policy.

“Aggregator policy for two-wheeler, three-wheeler and four-wheeler is in its final stage and will be rolled out soon helping them to apply for grant of license under the new scheme,” he had said on microblogging platform Twitter.

According to the draft aggregator policy, bike-taxis will be legal in the capital if it is an electric vehicle.

The bike-taxi ban and Gahlot’s tweets have sparked a strong pushback from the industry against electrification with Uber saying that the electrification mandate would kill the bike-taxi industry. IAMAI has also argued against the strong push for electrification in the state’s draft aggregator policy, ET reported on February 22.