Migrant workers’ leaving for their hometowns cook up a food delivery storm in Pune

Hoteliers, restaurateurs have not been able to service the food delivery sector as staff have returned to native places, leaving kitchens bereft of employees

Despite the state government’s order on March 28 allowing hotels and restaurants to restart their kitchens and home delivery service, hoteliers and restaurateurs said that they may not be able to do so as their staff went back to their hometowns, thus leaving many of the kitchens bereft of employees.

Pune Restaurant and Hoteliers Association (Praha) has appealed to its members to keep their kitchens open for deliveries (there are a total of 850 hoteliers). “The centre and the state government have notified home delivery/takeaway from restaurants, as part of essential services, with conditions like social distancing, regular sanitation of the premises, maintaining health and hygiene standards of the staff, and acquiring essential service providers pass from the local authorities for the purpose of staff mobility,” said Ganesh Shetty, president, Praha.

“However, some restaurant staff left the city due to panic among the residents and even quit their jobs, despite us telling them not to. Also, we are in talks with the collector and commissioner of police to help get passes for our staff who narrate bad experiences of being beaten by police while on delivery,” added Shetty.

Collector Naval Kishore Ram, however, said that they will help run the essential service smoothly. “We are always there to deal with any problem that they are facing. This is one of the essential services and if more hotels could come to help feed people, it would be great. We deal with more than 8,000 permissions for deliveries of different commodities daily, so we will gladly help if more kitchens could be kept open,” he said.

Paying heed to the help provided by the authorities, chef Ratan Baroi, who hails from Anadinagar in West Bengal, preferred being in Pune at work. “My family wanted me back at the earliest. However, our management assured us about our safety and made us understand that being here, would limit us from contracting the virus as a lot of people were over-crowding the trains. The last thing I want to do was to harm my family. At the end of the day, I’m really happy with my decision of staying back. With the advancement in technology today, I can keep in touch with them through video conferencing and also keep them updated about my daily activities. What’s more important, I’m here and helping the community by cooking meals for people who don’t have the means or resources at the moment.”

Zomato, too, has kept its deliveries open, according to their spokesperson, each of their delivery personnel has been provided with a police-approved pass, besides, mask and gloves to ensure help to those in need of getting food delivered.

In Salunkhe Vihar, Circle of Crust, a pizza cafe has its central kitchen in Wadgaon Sheri open for deliveries. Kartik Ganesh, marketing manager, said, “We have retained a very skeletal staff in the kitchen of six, as opposed to the usual 15. On an average, we get 22-34 delivery orders per day and we are using Zomato for it. Our staff has been provided with accommodation and food, sanitizers, among others.”

Sandy Singh, owner of Prems in Koregaon Park, said, “We have a kitchen running on very minimal staff of five while the usual is 30. Some of my staff wanted to go home to their families, so I didn’t stop them. I have all the necessary police permissions for allowing deliveries and we get 20 delivery orders on an average daily.”

Zoravar Sachdev, owner, 11, East Street Camp, said, “I am managing my kitchen with three people, while the rest of the staff is on paid leave.”

Some hotels like Mr Rabbits Bar and Burrow, Baner, have discontinued the home deliveries by their staff and prefer to do it over online service apps like Zomato and Swiggy. “There are people who are still ordering food online. We get an average six to nine calls a day which we are delivering via Swiggy. We are operational during the evening between 6.30pm to 11:30pm, and are working with limited staff in the kitchen and a person to manage the cash counter. We were doing home deliveries but that had to stop as the police did not allow it,” said Nupur Chaudhari, the owner.