FOOD DELIVERY COMPANIES GIVEN PERMITS

The state government on Wednesday announced that persons engaged in delivery of goods can apply for passes to enable their movement within the city.

After a lengthy meeting with representatives of the companies, IT secretary, Jayesh Ranjan, said that their managements could send emails to covid19.hyd@gmail.com with details of name, vehicle number, route and company name for a pass.

It may be noted that though delivery personnel have been exempted from the lockdown, many companies have stopped their services. In the past few days, delivery personnel reported issues with the police obstructing them on duty.

Ranjan told Deccan Chronicle that a meeting was held with representatives of delivery aggregators, including BigBasket, to smoothen out the logistics. Representatives of logistics companies dealing with essentials such as vegetables, milk, meat and poultry, even newspapers, attended the meeting to enumerate their difficulties to the government and police department.

Food delivery aggregators which had become inactive have been asked to resume service in an attempt to reduce the number of people visiting shops for groceries. "BigBasket, Amazon and other aggregators will soon start delivering groceries and other essentials. We are expecting the companies to resume their services tomorrow morning (Thursday). They will be focussed on delivering groceries, medicines and other essentials," he said.

The movement pass would be issued by the state police department. "We have received an enormous number of applications since the email was activated," said Ranjan.