The ongoing festive season has seen a sharp increase in temporary gig workforce demand, with hiring rising nearly 20–25 percent compared to last year. This surge, partly driven by reduced GST slabs, has however exposed an unexpected challenge—growing instances of verification failures such as forged identity documents, fake addresses, incomplete background checks, and safety or hygiene breaches slipping through the system.

 

Identity verification firm IDfy estimates that close to 10,000 profiles have already been blocked this festive season. By comparison, last year’s festive cycle saw nearly 30,000 profiles flagged. According to IDfy’s head Pratik Agarwal, the most common issues remain falsified IDs and mismatched addresses.

 

In response, quick-commerce, e-commerce, and logistics platforms have begun strengthening their screening and monitoring processes while onboarding temporary staff. Zomato and Blinkit, through spokesperson Eternal, confirmed adopting a zero-tolerance stance. “Any violations or impersonation cases are acted upon immediately. Proven cases of impersonation are treated as identity theft and can result in permanent account deactivation along with strict legal action,” the company said.

 

Industry executives also highlighted that many weaknesses in verification are often noticed only after an incident occurs. Aditya Mishra, CEO of staffing firm CIEL HR, explained that regulatory checks or even customer complaints frequently bring these lapses to light. “Background verification failures create risks to safety, compliance, and reputation. They can occur both at the onboarding stage, through fraudulent IDs, or later during operations via safety and hygiene issues,” he added.