Zomato CEO denied access to lift as ‘delivery boy’ in THIS posh mall of India’s national capital

In an effort to bring to the public eye the daily ordeal of food delivery agents, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal took up a novel step of turning into a delivery boy himself and making a few deliveries in Gurugram.

As the CEO of the company himself went on deliveries, he discovered the daily struggles of the delivery agents and decided to bring it to the fore by sharing it on social media.

In the video, Goyal shared clips of him visiting Ambience Mall in Gurugram and alleged that the authorities did not allow him to enter the mall from the main entrance and use the lift to go to the third floor. 

They instead asked him to take the stairs and climb to the third floor, since he was a delivery executive.

Sharing his first-hand experience as a delivery agent and the challenges he faced, Goyal wrote on X, “During my second order, I realised that we need to work with malls more closely to improve working conditions for all delivery partners. And malls also need to be more humane to delivery partners.”

“We reached Ambience Mall in Gurugram to pick up the order from Haldiram’s. I was told to take the other entrance, and realised they were asking me to take the stairs. Went in again on the main entrance to make sure there aren’t any elevators for delivery partners,” the Zomato CEO added.

Goyal said that he reached the third floor through the stairs and he got to know that delivery agents are not allowed to enter the mall and are forced to wait at the stairs only where they receive the orders.

“Chilled with my fellow delivery partners while also getting valuable feedback from them,” said the Zomato CEO. He said that he somehow managed to collect the order when “a small break” was taken by the staircase guard.

Reacting to the post of Goyal, a lot of social media users said that delivery agents are not just allowed to take lifts in malls but also in various societies.

“Every society, every mall and every office should make it mandatory for delivery partners to use normal regular lifts and entrances/exits. There shouldn’t be any divide,” wrote a user.

Hours after the post, the Zomato CEO informed that an online food delivery pick-up point has now been created by Gurugram’s Ambience Mall for all delivery partners.

“Ambience Mall has already responded to the situation, and created a comfortable online food delivery pick-up point for all delivery partners,” Goyal said.

“Thanks Arjun (owner of Ambience) for noticing my post and taking quick action. He’s also agreed to let us deploy some ‘walkers’ inside the mall to quickly shuttle the food from the restaurant to these pickup points to hand over the food to delivery partners. I urge all the other mall owners to please do the same, or come up with other innovative solutions which can help our collective customers, our delivery partners, restaurants, delivery aggregators, as well as malls themselves,” he added, in his post.

While filing the story, WION reached out to Ambience Mall in Gurugram for their comment on the incident, which will be added when received.

(With inputs from agencies)