Dunzo stops services in flooded parts of Bengaluru, say netizens

Bengaluru: Grocery delivery app Dunzo has stopped services in the parts of Bengaluru that have been affected by flood-like situations, according to residents in the city and posts on social media.

Reliance Retail-backed quick commerce Dunzo promises to deliver orders on Dunzo Daily in 19 minutes and the service is available in eight cities, including Bengaluru.

“Dunzo has been down since Wednesday. They are not accepting orders,” an employee of a well-known company, who did not wish to be identified, said.

Social media accounts claiming to be from Bengaluru posted a screenshot of the app which mentioned “Dunzo Daily will be back in a while”.

When contacted, a Dunzo spokesperson said, “The efforts of our delivery partners have been instrumental in reducing the havoc caused by heavy rains. To ensure their safety, we paused deliveries in areas with excessive water logging.”

The spokesperson said that in cases where orders get delayed due to rains, the company keeps its customers informed, prioritising partner safety.

“On the other hand, we also want to ensure that our customers have access to daily essentials, especially when they can’t step out of their homes. Our team is making continuous efforts on-ground to deliver in these areas, including using trucks to ensure essentials reach our customers in their time of need. Operations affected by heavy rains should resume shortly,” the spokesperson said.

Reliance Retail had led a $240 million funding round in January and acquired a 25 percent stake in Dunzo.

Several parts of Bengaluru have been flooded by torrential rains. Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar has blamed encroachment on lakes under the previous Congress government as one of the main reasons for the floods in the country’s technology hub.

Technology companies, which bore the brunt of recent flood-like situation due to heavy rains in the city, have aired their grievances before Karnataka IT and BT Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan, urging him to find a solution to the rain-related woes.

At a meeting convened by Narayan to discuss the problems caused by the unprecedented rainfall, the representatives of several IT companies said their primary concern was to bring to the notice of the government the miseries they faced and the losses incurred.

The meeting comes days after torrential rains and flooding affected the tech corridor in the capital city.

Representatives of Goldman Sachs, Infosys, Wells Fargo, Wipro, Mphasis, Intel, TCS, Accenture, Sonata Software, Philips, Solace were among those who attended the meeting.