As Platforms Push ’10-Minute Delivery’, Indian Riders Stage New Year’s Eve Strike

Addressing the demands put forward by the striking riders, he said: “Just think about it – if a system is inherently unfair, how could it possibly continue to attract people to join it or view it as a viable career choice?”

The “partners” he refers to are the delivery riders themselves, highlighting that, in terms of labour relations, riders are not recognised as platform employees. This also means it is remarkably easy for the platform to retaliate against riders who organise work stoppages or strikes – Indian labour law protects the strike rights of employees, meaning employers cannot dismiss them or terminate their contracts solely for striking. However, lacking formal employment contracts, riders are denied these protections.

II. Workers’ Repeated Battles Against the Platform Economy

So, in a developing nation of 1.4 billion people, what exactly does India’s platform economy look like?

Like much of the world, India has only recently witnessed a proliferation of digital platforms, with their rapid expansion largely fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Take industry giant Zomato, for example. Founded in 2008 and originally branded as FoodieBay, it began life as a restaurant review website. In 2010, it rebranded as Zomato and continued expanding its review service internationally. By 2015, Zomato had ventured into food delivery. Initially reliant on partnerships with third-party delivery services, it did not launch its own rider fleet until 2017. During the 2020 pandemic, Zomato capitalised on India’s state-announced social distancing measures to accelerate its growth: it acquired the Indian operations of UberEats and simultaneously launched grocery delivery services. This year, Zomato stands as India’s largest food delivery platform, commanding a 58% share of the restaurant delivery market.

What allowed the pandemic to fuel Zomato’s expansion so dramatically? On the one hand, lockdowns spurred demand for home delivery. On the other, the crisis dealt a severe blow to the Indian economy, triggering widespread joblessness. Western media outlets interviewed numerous delivery riders across India’s streets and neighbourhoods during the New Year’s Eve strike. Many revealed they had previously been self-employed or ran small businesses. When the pandemic dried up their cash flow and forced them to shutter their premises, they turned to delivery work out of necessity.

In India, the world’s most populous nation, delivery giants have pursued a strategy of heavy investment, rock-bottom prices, and a bid for market dominance. Delivery order prices in India are remarkably low. Data shows that Zomato’s average delivery fee per order is roughly 12.5 Indian rupees—about one Chinese yuan. Once the rider’s cut is taken, the revenue from a single delivery could never sustain a platform of such scale. So how do these companies keep the lights on? Partly by charging platform fees to the food sector: restaurants offering delivery pay Zomato a commission of 15% to 30% per order. The rest comes from relentless investment. Backers are more than willing to pour money in, expecting that once a platform like Zomato secures a near-monopoly across India’s vast market, it will simply raise prices and reap windfall profits.

For heavily funded platforms, this strategy of undercutting prices to capture market share amounts to little more than “growing pains”. For India’s small and medium-sized enterprises, down to sole traders, however, the outlook is far from rosy. In 2024, a widely discussed topic online was the rapid collapse of traditional husband-and-wife grocery stores. In 2023 alone, more than 200,000 such shops went under. Over the same period, order volumes on food delivery and e-commerce platforms surged at an annual rate of over 200%. Indian media noted at the time that the traditional appeal of these local shops lay in swift delivery and low prices. Yet in the age of digital giants, these advantages are swiftly overwhelmed by the ruthless, cost-no-object “predatory pricing” employed by platforms like Zomato to seize market share.

This has triggered a self-reinforcing, ever-accelerating cycle across India. As food and delivery platforms rise in prominence, they relentlessly slash prices to corner the country’s massive market. These rock-bottom rates leave countless small businesses and independent traders unable to compete, pushing them into unemployment. Lacking access to conventional manual or office work, many of these displaced individuals are funneled straight into the gig economy, purchasing their own motorcycles to operate as “partnered” delivery riders.

In India, the rise of platform work appears to be an unstoppable trend. Estimates put the number of platform workers in the country at over 10 million in 2025. Furthermore, according to projections by India’s NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India), the number of gig economy workers is set to surge to approximately 24 million by 2030, with the vast majority being platform workers.

Given this backdrop of abundant labour, the founder of Zomato’s remark that “how can we possibly continue to attract workers if the system itself is unfair?” is a glaring example of being utterly out of touch. It is precisely this buyer’s market that forces Indian food delivery riders to face mounting pressure, both in terms of delivery demands and income.

IV. Excessive Working Hours Endanger Road Safety

Media interviews indicate that riders in major Indian cities work around 15 hours a day, earning roughly 25,000 rupees a month (approximately 2,000 RMB), which sits slightly above India’s average wage. Yet, when you factor in the costs riders must cover out of pocket—motorcycle maintenance, fuel, insurance premiums, and medical bills following accidents—this pay is hardly compelling. The willingness of so many to take on such work can only be explained by a severe shortage of alternatives in the labour market.

Safety and road accidents are pressing issues for many Indian riders, closely tied to the platforms’ relentless compression of delivery windows. Riders complain that current delivery targets force them to routinely run red lights, break traffic laws, take risks, and exhaust themselves. “To finish deliveries on time, we have to keep pushing the speed. If we aren’t fast enough, we miss the deadline. The moment an order comes in, all I can think about is rushing, so I can take on more orders.”

The striking riders argue that the platform’s newly launched “10-minute delivery” scheme prioritises market share over rider safety. Furthermore, when accidents occur, riders lack formal employment contracts; the platforms merely treat them as “independent contractors.” During a meeting with Indian Parliament senator Raghav Chadha, riders voiced serious concerns about safety, particularly regarding injuries and crashes under intense time pressure, compounded by a complete absence of post-incident support.

Beyond concerns over safety and delivery speeds, the Indian food delivery riders also used this strike to demand higher pay per order. Their out-of-pocket fuel costs are steadily climbing as a result of volatile international oil prices. They are also calling for greater transparency in platforms’ complaint and account-suspension procedures. False complaints can lead to riders being banned, yet mounting an appeal remains exceptionally difficult. The two unions coordinating the action—the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and the Telangana Gig & Platform Workers Union (TGPWU)—have termed these systems “algorithmic exploitation”.

5. Employees or Independent Contractors?

The gig economy is hardly a new phenomenon in India. Since independence, formal employment has consistently fallen well short of demand, leaving vast numbers of people with little option but to piece together incomes from casual work. What distinguishes the new platform-based gig economy, however, is that it operates as large, formalised corporate entities while sidestepping the traditional regulations and constraints that apply to established businesses. Workers in this system have also lost the flexibility and the informal community support networks that characterised earlier forms of freelance or local odd jobs.

Several trade unions representing the gig sector have emerged in India in recent years. The TGPWU, which mobilised the riders for this latest action, alongside several other unions, have previously organised protests on behalf of app-based domestic workers and ride-hailing drivers, highlighting issues such as inadequate platform pay and discrimination based on caste and identity.

In India, food delivery platforms have also attempted to cater to the upper castes—in 2024, Zomato briefly launched an exclusive “vegetarian delivery” service. Riders argued this would foster discrimination based on caste and religious identity, effectively excluding those deemed “impure” from the delivery workforce. Following protests from unions and the wider public, Zomato ultimately scrapped the initiative.

The very nature of platform work has long made the gig economy appear resistant to the formation of staff associations and trade unions. In response to this reality, Indian associations have increasingly turned to social media to mobilise and connect workers, using short videos to disseminate knowledge on occupational health and safety, income tax filing, and social security registration. At the same time, they campaign for physical “rest stops” for riders and use these offline networks to gather and relay grievances as a follow-up to their digital outreach.

A 2025 report published by the TGPWU reveals that 62% of gig workers surveyed said union activities had brought some degree of benefit, citing the provision of a platform to voice demands and the breaking of the barrier that previously prevented individual workers from engaging in dialogue with platforms.

Many observers have noted that, according to Indian legal precedents dating back half a century, platform gig workers should unequivocally be classified as regular employees. A landmark 1947 Supreme Court ruling in India established that the primary distinction between an “independent contractor” and an employee lies in the latter’s inability to dictate the scope and manner of their work—specifically, what tasks to perform and how to execute them. From this perspective, algorithmic management and platform apps clearly fit the definition of employment. Yet, when it comes to the internet platform economy, both the Indian government and the judiciary have largely chosen to “turn a blind eye” to these precedents.

VI. Platforms Summoned for Talks

Despite this, the Indian riders’ actions cannot be deemed a complete “failure”. On the demand to scrap the “10-minute delivery” service, riders secured a modest victory: on 13 January, Indian media reported that the central government had summoned several food delivery platforms and instructed them to cease advertising promises such as “delivery in 10 minutes”. However, the government appears to have only mandated that platforms stop marketing their speed, rather than completely abolishing the service itself. This suggests the couriers’ victory remains limited.

Furthermore, with a rise in similar stoppages in recent years and sustained advocacy from various rider and gig worker associations, the central government—while still reluctant to classify riders as platform “employees”—is now considering plans to bring gig workers under social security and regulatory frameworks. Several state-level local governments have already enacted legislation or are preparing to do so, aiming to extend legal protections to platform workers.

Rajasthan has already passed such legislation, while states like Karnataka have entered the legislative process. A common thread among these laws is the requirement for platforms to allocate between 1% and 5% of each order’s revenue to establish a welfare fund for riders. Moreover, most of these bills mandate that companies provide comprehensive contracts to riders and register them with the government. Although these are not formal employment contracts, the benefits are modest, and implementation challenges remain, the underlying philosophy closely mirrors recent legislative practices in platform economy management in places like Singapore: treating platform labour as a quasi-employment relationship and requiring platform enterprises to shoulder a portion of mandatory social insurance obligations.

Foodthink Author

Azi

International news journalist and freelance writer

 

 

 

 

Edited by: Tianle