This post was originally published on this site.
India’s labor ministry is pushing the country’s booming quick-commerce sector to prioritize the wellness and safety of its gig workers.
The country’s minister of labor and employment, Mansukh Mandaviya, met with executives from Zomato’s BlinkIt, Swiggy’s Instamart, and Zepto to ask them to drop their marketing language, which promises deliveries within 10 minutes, and discuss ways to improve safety and working conditions for delivery personnel, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources.
While the instant delivery model has faltered elsewhere, it’s taken off in India at an unprecedented rate in the past few years as consumers in urban cities got used to having everything from PlayStation 5s to groceries delivered within 10 to 15 minutes.
Companies like Zepto, BlinkIt, and Instamart have raised and poured hundreds of millions of dollars into setting up “dark stores” — discrete warehouses located strategically around neighborhoods that serve as hubs. These companies have also hired armies of delivery personnel as competition heats up in the country’s booming e-commerce space.
Following the meeting, BlinkIt has removed messaging that promised deliveries within 10 minutes, and its rivals are also expected to follow suit, Bloomberg said.
The news comes little more than a month after India granted legal status to millions of gig and platform workers under new labor laws that define gig and platform workers in statute, and require aggregators, such as food-delivery and ride-hailing platforms, to contribute 1% to 2% of their annual revenue (capped at 5% of payments made to such workers) to a government-managed social security fund.
Swiggy, BlinkIt, and Zepto did not immediately return requests for comment.
