Hyperlocal food delivery app Zomato on Thursday issued a statement after a video of a boy working as a delivery executive went viral on social media lately. The video, posted by a Twitter user, show a young boy delivering food orders from Zomato to support his family after his father met with an accident. Rahul Mittal, who posted the video on Twitter, claimed that the boy was mere seven-year-old, who goes to school in the morning and after 6 pm, work as a delivery boy for Zomato.
However, a report by NDTV stated that Zomato issued a statement after the video went viral on social media and claimed the age of the boy to be 14 years. The video, shared by Mittal, has over 108.5k views by the time this article was being published.
"This 7 year boy is doing his father job as his father met with an accident the boy go to school in the morning and after 6 he work as a delivery boy for @zomato we need to motivate the energy of this boy and help his father to get into feet #zomato," Mittal tweeted while sharing the 29 second-long video.
Watch The Video Below:
In the video, Mittal can be heard asking multiple questions from the boy about why he is doing this. Reponding to his queries, the boy holding a box of chocolates in his hand talks about his working hours and that he delivers food to customers using his bicycle.
Further in the video, the boy informs that he delivers food from 6 pm till 11 pm and in the morning he goes to school. Responding to the same, the food delivery giant issued a statement saying that it has informed the boy's family and even offered to support the 14-year-old's education through the Zomato Future Foundation.
"We are thankful to the internet community for bringing this to our notice. There are multifold violations here - child labour and misrepresentation, and we've educated the family on these grounds while not taking any strict action on this, keeping in mind the situation the family is in," NDTV quoted a Zomato spokesperson as saying.
"We have offered to support the 14-year-old's education through the Zomato Future Foundation. The father onboarded on Zomato post his accident; therefore, the accidental support we offer to our active delivery partners cannot be extended to him. As an exception and on humanitarian grounds, our teams have extended whatever support was possible in the said situation," the spokesperson added.
After the video went viral, several users extended financial and educational help to the boy. While many Twitter user asked Mittal to share details of the boy, others praised Zomato for offering aid to the family.