Hours after India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the world's biggest lockdown for 21-days to contain the spread of coronavirus, online retailers and grocers either shut operations or curtailed them, citing lack of clarity and inadequate safety of employees. Police in many states, districts and cities, which already announced lockdowns a few days ago, are refusing to allow e-commerce delivery staff to pass.
Walmart Inc.-owned Flipkart temporarily suspended operations, according to a statement on its website. While it didn't give more details on how long this will last, a Flipkart executive said the online retailer awaits ground-level clarity on what's allowed officially. The executive spoke on the condition of anonymity as the person isn't authorised to speak to the media.
The suspension comes even though the government advisory exempted e-commerce deliveries of essential services such as food, medical equipment in addition to grocery stores, and other things. Yet, there's confusion on the ground about what's allowed and how the companies can go about it when the movement of employees is restricted because of the lockdown of 1.3 billion people that triggered chaos on Tuesday night as people rushed to stock up essentials.
Our top priority has to be to flatten the curve. Thanks to the central govt for recognizing e-commerce is rendering an essential service to help citizens remain at home, maintain social distancing. We sincerely appeal to local authorities to enable us provide sustained service. pic.twitter.com/tRVfSBkFJ3
Amazon is also halting orders for non-essential products in India to prioritise customers' ‘critical needs', and focus on supplying essentials, according to its statement. The retail giant said it's prioritising stocking and delivering priority products like household staples, health and hygiene products, sanitisers, baby formula, and medical supplies.
We regret the inconvenience caused, we are not operational due to restrictions imposed by local authorities on movement of goods in spite of clear guidelines provided by central authorities to enable essential services. We are working with the authorities to be back soon.
Grocery startup Grofers too suspended operations due to lack of clarity in their listing as an essential service provider. Along with peer BigBasket, it has been overwhelmed with orders and either cancelled deliveries or stopped taking fresh orders because of the backlog.
Safety Of Employees
Flipkart, Grofers and Amazon, along with online pharmacy Medlife, have also raised the issue of safety of their employees. That came after reports of delivery staff being beaten up by the police.
A Medlife delivery personnel was beaten by police in Delhi on Monday while bringing the curfew pass to the fulfillment centre, the company said in statement. “The indiscriminate use of force against delivery personnel specifically exempted by the government and the lifeline during the shutdown will disrupt services,” Ananth Narayanan, Co-founder & CEO of Medlife, said.
The Flipkart official quoted earlier said the retailer too was concerned about the safety of their delivery executives.
An Amazon spokesperson too stressed on the safety of its delivery executives. “We are working with the local authorities to enable us to perform these important services providing safety for our delivery associates and allowing them to make sure those priority goods can arrive safely at our customers' homes without any disruption.”
Authorities Pay Heed
Online retailers are expected to resume services on Thursday following assurances from both state and central governments on the safety of their employees and allowing them to operate seamlessly.
Executives of e-commerce firms and other retailers met with the home secretary and secretaries of Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and Pharma regarding the issues, Punya Salila Srivastava, joint secretary of Ministry of Home Affairs, told reporters on Wednesday evening. She said all the issues should be resolved by tomorrow. Such meetings were also held at the state government level today.
Flipkart, which had earlier suspended all operations, has re-launched with groceries and other essential services. Similarly, Grofers has started accepting orders again.
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