Update on March 25: After Gurugram’s police commissioner Muhammad Ali had initially allowed 12 e-commerce companies to operate in the city, a subsequent order has now allowed more e-commerce companies in the city. The new order specifically name checks the following e-commerce companies: Zomato, Swiggy, Flipkart, Amazon, Grofers, BigBasket, Dunzo, Milkbasket, Big Bazaar, Blue Dart, WOW Express, IFFCO Tokyo Goods, 24seven, DTDC, Snapdeal, Licious, Medlife, PharmEasy, Urbanclap, Ninjacart, Honasa Consumer, Healthian Diagnostics, Delhivery, Nutrimoo Milk Dairy, More retail, Easyday, Jabong, Myntra, Sencer’s, Reliance Fresh, Jubilant Food Works (Domino’s), Foodpanda, Faaso’s, Pizza Hut, Ubereats, Needs Supermart, 1mg, Dr Lal PathLabs, Max-Path, Satvacart.
The order also said that “any e-commerce retailers/operators shall be allowed to operate”. It’s also not clear why Jabong and Myntra have been allowed to operate in the city when they don’t provide any of the essential services, that is, food, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment. We’ve reached out to the commissioner’s office for more details.
Earlier on March 25: Zomato, Swiggy, Flipkart, Amazon, Grofers, BigBasket, Dunzo, Milkbasket, Big Bazaar, Blue Dart, WOW Express and IFFCO Tokyo Goods will be allowed to operate in Gurugram, the city’s police commissioner, Muhammad Akil, directed all officials of Gurugram police today. The commissioner’s office told MediaNama that the staff of these platforms will not require additional passes to move around the city.
In this order, e-pharmacies, such as 1mg, Pharmeasy and NetMeds, have not been included. We don’t know whether these services would be allowed to operate in the city. The commissioner’s office told MediaNama that for now, this is the only order that has been issued. As per Home Ministry’s exemption for e-commerce delivery during the 21-day lockdown, essential goods include food, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment.
Gurugram police commissioner’s order
Milkbasket’s delivery was hampered in Gurugram: Yesterday night, e-commerce platform Milkbasket claimed that it failed to deliver over half of its orders in Gurugram and Noida. The company’s CEO, Anant Goel, said that the company’s “staff, vendors and vehicles [were] being pushed back from the roads by local police”, and that it was being “asked to shut down its distribution centres”. Apart from the police, even resident welfare associations in the city curtailed movement of the company’s delivery persons, which resulted in them dumping 15,000 litres of milk and throwing over 10,000 kilograms of fruits and vegetables.
E-commerce operations hampered: On day one of the nationwide lockdown, we observed that multiple e-commerce companies, including Amazon, Flipkart, Grofers and BigBasket, are unable to service customers. Some of them had put a hold on operations, or were otherwise inaccessible.
Read: COVID-19: Several e-commerce companies unable to service customers a day after the curfew
*Updated on March 26 with more details, and the headline was changed subsequently. Original story was published on March 25.
