Chandigarh residents fail to get online food orders

Deepankar Sharda

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 11

Chandigarh foodies, who went drooling after observing Zomato providing home delivery of cooked food in the city, felt betrayed after failing to get orders.

The famous food aggregator offered to deliver a rich variety of Indian cuisine, wraps, cakes, non-vegetation dishes, pastas, burgers, pizzas and what not from Mohali-based restaurants to Chandigarh only after taking advance payment. 

Notably, if an unaware delivery person mistakenly picks up an order, it becomes his responsibility and the refund amount gets deducted from his salary, claimed a delivery boy.

“If the order is ready and we are unable to deliver it, the amount gets deducted from our account. I received almost 10 to 20 orders for Chandigarh, but I have to cancel these within few seconds. Otherwise I would end up paying fines. All of them (Zomato and restaurants) will get their share but they don’t think if it’s feasible to deliver the food or not,” said a delivery person.

An order was also placed by The Tribune correspondent to crosscheck the claims. The order was accepted by the restaurant and a delivery person was also assigned. However, after checking the delivery location (Chandigarh), the delivery boy requested to cancel the order. 

“The amount deduced will be reflected in the account within 5 to 7 days,” said one of the company representatives.

Mohali allows food delivery

The Mohali Administration has allowed delivery of cooked food in the district. “Certain restaurants are allowed to function, but only for home delivery. Considering the interest of captive population, we have also allowed home delivery of tiffin service,” said Mohali DC Girish Dayalan. When asked about restaurants accepting orders for Chandigarh, Dayalan assured to get it checked. “No, this is not allowed. They are only allowed to deliver food in Mohali. I will check this and it will be stopped immediately.”