India is reportedly asking courier companies to abandon the promise of 10-minute delivery

India’s Ministry of Labor is pushing the country’s thriving express trade sector to prioritize the well-being and safety of gig workers.

The country’s Labor and Employment Minister, Mansukh Mandaviya, met with executives from Zomato’s BlinkIt, Swiggy’s Instamart, and Zepto to ask them to drop their marketing language, which promises delivery within 10 minutes, and discuss ways to improve safety and working conditions for delivery staff, Bloomberg reported. I mentionedciting anonymous sources.

While the instant delivery model has faltered elsewhere, in India it has taken off at an unprecedented rate in the past few years as consumers in urban cities have come to expect everything from PlayStation 5 consoles to groceries to be delivered within 10 to 15 minutes.

Companies like Zepto, BlinkIt, and Instagram have this feature He grew up It has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into creating “dark warehouses” — separate warehouses strategically located around neighborhoods that serve as hubs. These companies have also hired armies of delivery staff as competition intensifies in the country’s booming e-commerce space.

The pressures on workers intensified as the sector grew. On New Year’s Eve, more than 200,000 workers staged protests across major Indian cities during the peak delivery period, According to the South China Morning PostQuoted by the Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers. Workers demanded legislative protections, Social Security benefits, better wages, and changes to automatic penalty systems that reduced their ratings for late birth. Safety concerns have emerged about workers rushing through traffic to meet delivery deadlines. “Ultra-fast 10- to 15-minute delivery models fundamentally change the risks and stress of freelance work,” Prabir Jha, founder and CEO of HR consulting firm Prabir Jha People, said in a statement to the outlet.

Amid worker protests and pressure from the Labor Department, BlinkIt removed messages that promised delivery within 10 minutes, and its competitors are also expected to follow suit, Bloomberg said.

The news comes just over a month later India was granted legal status To millions of gig and platform workers under new labor laws that define gig and platform workers in law and require aggregators, such as food delivery and ride-hailing platforms, to contribute 1% to 2% of their annual revenue (up to a maximum of 5% of payments made to these workers) to a government-run social security fund.

India’s gig economy employed about 7.7 million workers in 2020-21, and is expected to reach 23.5 million by 2029-2030, according to government think tank NITI Aayog.

Swiggy, BlinkIt and Zepto did not immediately respond to requests for comment.