#StartupsVsCovid19: Zomato Rolls Out INR 10 Cr Fund To Aid Delivery Partners

Food delivery major Zomato has launched a new fund to support its driver-partners many of whom are not able to earn an income due to the ongoing lockdown. For the fund, Zomato is planning to raise INR 10 Cr to help more than 100K partners, in addition to its other relief measures for affected partners and vendors.

In a blog post, Zomato said that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has affected the daily income of over 100K riders in around 350 cities across the country. As most of these delivery partners work on contractual bases, they depend on daily wages to earn a living. “They have little to no savings due to which they are facing difficulties in paying their monthly rents, children’s education fees and other expenses,” Zomato added.

Zomato said that it has launched ‘Rider Relief Fund’ to raise money to support riders. It wants to ensure that they have at least enough money to buy staples and essentials for their families. Also, some of the funds from the corpus will be spent to address any medical emergencies for riders as well as their families.

It is worth noting that INR 10 Cr will only help Zomato to distribute INR 1,000 to each to around 100K delivery partners who are not able to work right now. Any individual or business can donate to this fund through the mobile application of Zomato.

Besides this fund, all the employees of Zomato are taking voluntary pay cuts to keep the platform afloat and further help delivery partners of the company. Zomato said that some of the employees have even taken a 100% salary cut or donated a significant part of their savings and salaries, to help the community.

Additionally, Zomato has provided Covid-19 insurance to all riders along with distributing face masks. Zomato through its non-profit arm Feeding India is also running “Feed the Daily Wager” campaign to distribute ration kits that should last a family of five for one whole week.

Similar to Zomato, other consumer services companies are also raising money for their contractual workers. For instance, Zomato’s rival Swiggy is also looking to raise INR 10 Cr for a special relief fund to provide financial and medical stability to all its delivery partners and their family members. Swiggy’s cofounder and CEO Sriharsha Majety has decided to give up on 50% of his annual salary to contribute to the relief fund.

Also, Ola has launched ‘Drive the Driver Fund’ in order to assure financial stability for driver-partners working with Ola. To contribute to the fund, Ola’s CEO and cofounder Bhavish Aggarwal also decided to forgo a year’s salary. Besides this, Ola Group and its employees have also crowdfunded INR 20 Cr to help out the driver-partners.

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