Swiggy, an online food ordering and delivery platform, has recently announced the expansion of its benefits and support for 150,000 delivery partners in India. These benefits include insurance and hospitalization cover and paid time off.
Under the new COVID care package known as Swiggy Suraksha, all COVID-affected delivery personnel will be eligible to obtain ₹14,000 ($192.24) for 2 weeks, in addition to providing paid leave during their recovery period. Over the past year, the company has been offering such support to these delivery partners.
For the record, the delivery personnel and their families who tested positive for COVID-19 will gain hospitalization cover of over ₹1.5 lakh ($2,059.70). The food delivery company will also offer enhanced life insurance of around ₹5 lakh ($6,865.49) in case of their untimely death due to COVID-19. As per the preference of the delivery partners, the company is also planning to provide doorstep delivery of the homestyle meals prepared in its cloud kitchens across Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru.
Furthermore, the platform is intending to offer income support for 1 week for the delivery partners during an incidence of bereavement (death of parents/dependents/siblings/grandparents), which is not limited to COVID-related deaths.
Swiggy lends a strong focus on ensuring the health & safety of the delivery partners, due to which it has introduced a variety of initiatives throughout the pandemic. These initiatives include in-app access to telemedicine consultations for free, vaccination cover or loss of pay cover during vaccination, hygiene stations at restaurants, safety kits with sanitizers and masks, as well as tech-enabled features such as safety gear audit. It also has been promoting no-contact delivery to ensure the safety of the delivery partners and customers alike and RT-PCR tests in mandated cities.
In May 2021, the food delivery platform started vaccination drives for the delivery partners in the country.
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