The Plight of a Delivery Boy in India

Author: Vihor Shergill (Brother of Sabhyata Shergill)

We order our favorite products on these sites and then eagerly wait for the item to be packed, we constantly check if it is shipped and words would not do justice to the excitement we feel when we finally read the text “Your order is out for Delivery”.

Then later that day the doorbell rings and we know who it is so we leap out of our bed, leaving whatever we were doing to receive the delivery and without even looking at the face of the delivery boy we accept the package and set the delivery boy to his next destination without contemplating the hardships he had to undergo to get our order to us.

I know one boy, Vimal personally who works as a delivery boy at Flipkart. He told me his daily routine few days ago and I would like to take this opportunity to shed some light on it here.

Vimal wakes at 5:45 AM, eats his morning meal, uses the washroom and gets ready to leave for work by 7:00 AM. He takes a rickshaw to the Flipkart warehouse where he is given the details of the deliveries he has to make that day, which he says is usually MORE THAN 60. Yes, more than 60 a day !

He picks up a bike from the warehouse with the bag full of delivery packages (around 20 packages) on his back. He leaves at around 8 AM from the warehouse to the customer’s address and after delivering these 20 packages, he returns to the warehouse at around 12:30–1.

He again picks up the next lot of delivery packages and again leaves for the customer’s address at around 1:30 and after all the 20 deliveries he again returns to the warehouse to pick the next lot at around 5.

He, after having a small break of 20 minutes, again leaves to deliver the remaining packages at around 5:20 and this time he is in a hurry, as he has to complete the delivery by 7 PM, so he tries to minimize the travel time by driving at illegal speeds putting his life at risk :(

Then finally he returns home at around 8 PM. This amounts to a total of 13 hour work shift, and do you know how much he is paid for this, a MEAGRE Rs 15 per delivery. Just Rs 15. For this Rs 15 he puts his life at risk. Isn’t this pitiable? I believe it surely is.

The same is the plight of the Amazon delivery boys as well, they are paid on similar lines, as told by Vimal's friends who work with Amazon.

I feel really sorry for Vimal when I sometimes see him returning home at 8:30 after doing so much laborious work in the day.

I request Flipkart, if any Flipkart employee is reading this, to please increase the wages of the delivery boys and reduce their work hours. After all they too are humans, have family and parents at home who are concerned about them.

Now, some of you might say that he is making more than Rs 25000/- per month which is way higher than what most of the Fresher Engineers in India get, so if people like Vimal who are not having any degree are earning this amount, then where the plight is?

Here, I'd like to inform you that an engineer's starting salary might be less than Rs 25000 per month, but after 4-6 years of experience, an engineer will play in lakhs. Whereas Vimal will still earn not more than Rs 30000 per month due to logistics being a non-growing sector. 

Also an engineer does a desk job in a confined and a safe environment and is given several perks and incentives, whereas a delivery boy's life is always at risk because he is on the road throughout the day with the heavy delivery bag on his back.

I strongly urge the customers to at least provide him with a glass of water when he delivers your orders for:- they too are human...