troublemaker

Swiggy

delivery executive

Baner Road

.

Piggy Bank

Though no FIR was lodged on the incident, we reached the spot immediately, took Kanade to the police chowky and gave him a warning — PSI Mahesh Borse of Balewadi police chowky

A bloodied nose and ear is what it took for Swiggy to sit up and take note of its illbehaved. Though the management of a new eatery onhad time and again complained to the food delivery aggregator over the past three months about its delivery partner’s attitude, little was done to contain him, until the situation turned violent last Friday night.Piggy Bank, specialising in pork burgers, had opened its doors to business only in January this year. From the very first week of its operations, the takeaway has had Swiggy’s Vijay Kanade picking up its deliveries. According to the outlet’s owner, Ankur Borwankar, Kanade has always been a difficult person to deal with. Not receiving calls, delaying pick-ups and deliveries, misbehaviour with the outlet’s women staff, were some of the issues with him, and this was also denting the reputation of both, the restaurant and Swiggy, he contended.Speaking to Mirror, Borwankar pointed out, “Ever since we opened shop, we have been treating the delivery executives with dignity, offering them a seat and water, a gesture not extended by many. Kanade, who has been assigned to pick up parcels from our place several times since the very beginning, however, has been always at odds with us and his behaviour progressively became ruder. Through calls and emails, we kept updating Swiggy about the issues we were facing and also sought action or at least be spared of Kanade’s services. They did not respond, except to say that assignment of duties was system driven and not in their hands.”On Friday night, things just went out of control. “We are extremely cautious to not be a nuisance for our neighbouring bungalows, reining in the noise levels, ensuring proper parking and maintaining cleanliness of the area,” Borwankar explained. Kanade had arrived past midnight (12.30 am) and parked his bike in a manner that it blocked the road, he added. “I asked him thrice to park it properly but he countered asking us to hurry up with the parcel. When I could not coax him to do it, I took his bike to park it right. All hell broke loose. He kicked all the trash cans on the road and then launched into a fisticuff with me,” the entrepreneur recalled.He was left with an injured nose and also bleeding ear. Kanade left the spot after that, only to return twice with two different people to threaten Borwankar and his staff.Finally, cops had to be called in to bring the situation under control. However, no FIR has been filed as Borwankar did not want the matter to blow up, “Though no FIR was lodged on the incident, we reached the spot immediately and took Kanade to the police chowky and gave him a warning. With this we’ve down our part and are willing to help should our intervention be required again,” informed police sub-inspector, Mahesh Borse, from Balewadi police chowky.However, Borwankar is convinced that it is Swiggy’s responsibility to intervene and resolve the issue. Swiggy officials reiterated that while assignment of duties in not under their control, they did give a stern feedback to Kanade when the earlier complaints came. An official spokesperson told Mirror, “We have been made aware of the altercation that happened between the outlet and our delivery partner. Such behaviour is not condoned by Swiggy and we will extend our full support to the investigating authorities so the issue is resolved at the earliest. Swiggy remains committed to working with both the restaurant and delivery partner community to build the necessary confidence. For now, the delivery partner concerned has been suspended as long as the investigation is on.”To Piggy Bank’s credit, other Swiggy delivery executives have vouched for the outlet’s handling of their colleagues. “Ankur has maintained friendly relations with all the delivery executives. I happen to know Vijay and am aware of the episode. We had all requested Vijay to back off and not make matters worse, which were affecting both the outlet owner as well as him. But now it is too late and the damage has been done,” said Brijesh K, who also picks up deliveries fromAs it happens, this is the second incident in the span for five months that a Swiggy delivery executive has unleashed violence on a partner restaurant. As reported by Mirror (‘Swiggy man demands freebies, beats up Aundh restaurant employees’ – October 25, 2018) the chef and other staff of another restaurant was thrashed by another Swiggy man and his friends for refusing to ply them with free food.