Blinkit Services Disrupted In Delhi-NCR As Delivery Partners Go On Strike

A strike by delivery partners of Zomato-owned Blinkit in Delhi-NCR over the changes in their pay structure has disrupted the services of the quick-commerce platform in the region.

“Sorry for the inconvenience. Your store is under maintenance,” reads a message from the startup on its app in some areas of the national capital.

According to a report by The Morning Context, Blinkit introduced a new pay structure from Monday midnight for delivery partners under which the partners would have to book their time slots and complete the targets assigned to them. They would be paid on a per kilometre basis. However, the delivery partners say this would reduce their earnings.

Responding to Inc42’s query on the issue, a Blinkit spokesperson said, “We have introduced a new payout structure for our partners that compensates them based on their effort to deliver an order. This is an opt-in exercise, and our teams are on the ground to answer any questions from the partners.”

However, the company did not give the breakdown of the new pay structure and said it is working on bringing all the impacted stores live soon.

“Although some locations have experienced disruptions, we are actively engaging with our partners to get the stores back up and running for our customers,” the spokesperson added.

The strike by delivery partners of Blinkit is not the first such instance of gig workers going on strike. Over the last one year, quick-commerce player Dunzo and food delivery platform Swiggy have faced several protests, primarily over issues with their payment structure. For instance, Swiggy’s delivery executives in Kochi went on a strike last November demanding a hike in remuneration.

Dunzo riders in Bengaluru also protested against the startup over a slew of issues, including changes in login timings and in incentive structure, last year.

Quick-commerce is a highly-competitive and cash-guzzling business. Swiggy’s Instamart, Zepto, Dunzo, Tata-owned Bigbasket are among those fighting to grab the market share in the space.

Earlier this year, Reliance Retail’s JioMart stopped the operations of JioMart Express, the quick commerce delivery arm of JioMart launched in March 2022.

As per a report by Fairwork, Indian startups such as Ola, Uber, and Dunzo were among the worst performers when it came to the working conditions of gig workers.

According to a report by government think tank NITI Aayog, the number of workers engaged in the gig economy in the country would rise to 23.5 Mn by 2029-30 from 7.7 Mn workers in 2020-21. It called for extending social security benefits to gig workers, including platform as well as non-platform workers.

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