‘10-minute delivery’ workers forced to drive rashly to achieve targets

The new payout structure released by the grocery delivery app has raised concerns among the employees.

Several delivery partners of ‘Zepto’, an app that promises to deliver grocery orders within 10 minutes, have alleged that the new payout structure of the company is forcing them to drive rashly in order to be able to get incentives. Without incentives, the salary is too meagre, say the delivery partners.

Zepto delivery partners waiting for delivery orders. Aynan Shaikh, one of the Zepto delivery partners has alleged that new payout system is forcing them towards rash driving in order to achieve their targets, at Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC), in Mumbai, India, on Saturday, June 10, 2023.(Satish Bate/HT PHOTO)

On May 25, delivery partner Aynan Shaikh took to Twitter to write: “I am a student working part-time as a delivery rider for Zepto… Recently, Zepto implemented a new payout system for part-time riders that has raised significant concerns among us.” Shaikh further elaborated on the payout structure in his Twitter thread, and also tagged the Mumbai police.

The 21-year-old is an architecture school dropout working part-time with Zepto. “The company has taken the 10 minutes’ delivery business so seriously that in the new payout structure, we are paid only around ₹250 for eight deliveries,” he said. “This includes fuel costs and everything else. Each delivery takes 20 to 30 minutes, including the return time. The reasonably good payouts are only for a higher volume of deliveries, but the company wants us to achieve these targets in the four-hour shift only. This leaves partners with no option but to drive rashly to achieve a higher target.”

Shaikh said that delivery partners were also pressurised and yelled at by the managers to deliver orders very quickly. “We get notifications like ‘Please pick up the order in 60 seconds to avoid action on your ID,” he said. “Imagine the kind of stress that we undergo.”

Pradeep Gupta, another gig worker, pointed out that Zepto had now increased the number of delivery partners substantially. “After we reach the store, it takes a long time for us to get our turn for another delivery,” he said. “So if we have to achieve a certain number of deliveries in a four-hour shift to get incentives, it is not possible. Without incentives, the payout is not even enough for basic necessities.”

Rehman Khan, another delivery partner, reiterated his co-workers’ sentiments. “For 18 deliveries, we were paid around 900, so even if we had a four-hour part-time shift, we would work a little more than four hours and finish the targets,” he said. “Now the company says it will pay incentives only for targets achieved during shift hours. But it is not possible to do more than six or seven orders in a shift. Some orders are as far away as five to six kilometres.”

Shaik Salauddin, founder national general secretary of the Indian Federation Of App-Based Transport Workers (IFAT) and founder state president of the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union (TGPWU), said that gig workers were going through a lot of anxiety. “Imagine their mental and physical stress,” he said. “If they don’t deliver orders on time, they are threatened with ID blacklisting. The constant fear of being suddenly unemployed without a hearing or any support is nerve-wracking. Many workers have bought two-wheelers on EMIs to take up such gigs, and then companies fire them or threaten them every day by saying their ratings will be affected.”

Salauddin also explained that the government was not implementing the social security schemes merely to attract more investments. “So many accidents happen on 10-minute deliveries, so why is the government not able to regulate this?” he asked. “This 10-minute delivery concept received opposition from many customers as well when it was launched, so why keep it going?”

In a detailed response to HT’s query, a Zepto representative explained, “If a partner (Zepton) delivers 18 orders in a day, he/she has the opportunity to earn over ₹925. Six days of consistent working as part-time delivery partner helps them earn ₹5,550, and clocking 24 days a month fetches them over ₹22,200. With average fuel cost and maintenance for a month being ₹4665 and ₹1000 respectively, our part-time delivery partners take home upwards of ₹16,000 per month.”

Denying the allegation that the Zepto partners were yelled at, the representative wrote, “This is not true. We do not show time to riders, nor are they incentivised to deliver faster. Over 95 percent of our orders are delivered within a radius of four kms. For rare orders beyond four km, we pay our riders a flat fee of INR 10 per km. On an average, our Zeptons spend 8-10 mins on the road covering a distance of 1.7-1.9km per delivery at a safe speed of 11 km per hour.”

Zepto also denied that riders received notifications in the app to pick up orders in 60 seconds to avoid action on their IDs. “Riders are alerted once their orders are ready,” he said. “They are under no pressure to pick an order within 60 seconds or less. By design, our riders wait for orders to be picked up promptly, as that allows them to optimise their time and earn more.”

(Some names have been changed to protect identities)