Blog

Foodtech giant Zomato has announced that it will soon be launching a 10-minute delivery option on its platform. While most consumers may seem excited by the proposition of getting their meal delivered faster, many are wary about the impact it can have on delivery partners.

Karthi P Chidambaram, Member of Parliament (MP) from Lok Sabha, took to Twitter to express his concerns. He added that it would cause undue pressure on delivery executives. He stated he has also written to the government and has even raised the issue in parliament.

He explained the 10-minute delivery would be a gamble for gig workers.

Though the announcement from Zomato has raised concern, CEO Deepinder Goyal pointed out before announcing the policy in the blog that all measures have been taken to not put delivery partners under pressure. He said in the company blog,

“Before we even talk about this, we will start with a clarification – to fulfil our quick delivery promise, we do not put any pressure on delivery partners to deliver food faster. Nor do we penalise delivery partners for late deliveries. The delivery partners are not informed of the promised time of delivery. Time optimisation does not happen on the road, and does not put any lives at risk,” it read. 

Last month, Zomato had posted a consolidated loss of Rs 63.2 crore in the third quarter of 2021-22. This was an improvement from the year-ago period when the company made a loss of Rs 352.6 crore. 

In the previous quarter, the food delivery decacorn posted a loss of Rs 429.6 crore. Its consolidated revenue from operations was Rs 1,112 crore — 82.5 percent higher than from a year ago when it posted Rs 609.4 crore. Sequentially, it grew by 8.5 percent from the previous quarter when it posted a revenue of Rs 1024.2 crore.

The company said that its customer delivery charges declined by 22 percent, driven by a reduction of Rs 7.5 per order in customer delivery charges in Q3 FY22 as compared to Q2 FY22. 

The impact of this announcement on the company’s market prices is yet to be seen. However, it nevertheless has garnered strong reactions.