Is Scrapping 10-Minute Delivery Enough To End Gig Workers' Exploitation?

India’s labour ministry on Tuesday did away with the 10-minute delivery system on which platforms like Blinkit, Zepto, Zomato and Swiggy thrive. 

The move came after the gig-workers across the country held a strike on December 31, raising concerns of exploitative nature of work. However, their long-standing demand of removing the time-frame for deliveries is not standalone. 

The actions taken by the Labour ministry are surely welcome, said Sunand, President of Rajdhani App Workers Union. 

He also flagged broader concerns about how the government’s directives would be implemented, including whether any changes would be made to the mobile applications used by delivery workers to display delivery timeframes.

Inside dark stores—retail outlets or distribution centres designed for e-commerce—supervisors continuously track delivery times. Although there is no empirical evidence, Sunand said that failing to meet delivery timelines can negatively influence the algorithm via supervisory assessments and poor customer reviews, ultimately affecting the number of orders assigned to delivery workers.

However, secondly, there are other grievances which require immediate addressal, he added. 

He further said the government’s actions must also be seen in the context of concerns that the 10-minute delivery model is hurting brick-and-mortar stores. 

Given that political parties may have vested interests in protecting such businesses, the outcome has emerged as a welfare measure for gig workers, even if that was not the original intent. “It’s not only because of concern for the delivery workers, but also because of concerns raised by traders and their associations.”

Suman Dasmahapatra, the Karnataka coordinator of the AIGWU, also welcomed the government's move. Nonetheless, he seconded Sunand on more concrete directives that should be implemented immediately. 

10-minute delivery promises push gig workers to drive rashly, and in the event of accidents, platform companies would merely provide a list of hospitals where the treatment would be covered by the company.

“How do you expect workers to find a hospital on the list in case of accidents,” Dasmahapatra said. The process of getting reimbursement after being treated at a non-enlisted hospital is really difficult, he added.

“They try to manipulate multiple ways to get away from providing such kinds of benefits,” he stated, noting that the bigger fight is to ensure that gig-workers get the status of employees, rather than “partners”.

“We have noticed that such business models are followed by Flipkart and Amazon as well. Instead of just verbal notices, formal communication should go to the companies and governments should take initiative to create awareness amongst the gig workers,” he said.

The fine print

Gig workers were formally brought into India’s legal framework through the Code on Social Security, 2020. Under Chapter I, Section 2(35), a gig worker is defined as “a person who participates in a work arrangement and earns from such activities outside of a traditional employer-employee relationship.”

Although the definitions distinguish gig workers from both formal and informal categories, they stop short of offering clarity on who exactly qualifies as a gig worker or the precise nature of gig work. 

The country’s labour codes have opened access to schemes covering healthcare, disability and accident insurance, as well as old-age support. Aggregators such as Swiggy and Zomato will be required to contribute 1–2 per cent of their annual turnover to this fund, with the overall contribution capped at 5 per cent of the amount payable to workers.

A booming market

NITI Aayog’s 2022 report, India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy, projects that the gig workforce will expand to 2.35 crore by 2029–30 from the 21, 77 lakh in 2020. 

Yet, despite such forecasts and attempts at formal definitions, India’s primary source of labour statistics — the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) — continues to subsume gig work under broad categories such as ‘self-employed’, ‘own-account workers’, or ‘casual labour’. This statistical invisibility has tangible consequences.

Data from Datum Intelligence shows that the growing adoption of the 15-minute delivery option for grocery delivery quick commerce was expected to reach $6.9 billion by 2025 accounting for 50 per cent of online grocery sales. 

Blinkit remained the largest player with 40 per cent market share in 2023 followed by Swiggy Instamart and Zepto.

What’s in a name?

After the government's Tuesday (January 13, 2026) announcement, Blinkit has rebranded its offering from “Grocery in 10 minutes” to “Groceries & more”, according to the internet archive website Wayback Machine, Reuters reported.

On Google’s Play Store, Zepto now brands itself as delivering ‘Groceries in minutes’. However, Tata’s BigBasket still carries the ‘10 min Grocery App’.

“We are happy to see that the government has taken the initiative and has acted upon our primary request to end the 10-minute delivery model,” said Nirmal Gorana, National Coordinator of Gig and Platform Service Workers Union (GIPSWU).

However, he stated that the actions need to be formalised beyond verbal affirmations, as lack of mandated rules for platform companies leaves room for exploitation. “The companies can simply make it a 11-minute delivery application, it would be a cruel joke at the expense of the gig-workers.”

A grey zone

The existence of time caps puts gig-work in the grey area of forced labour. GIPSWU wrote to the National Human Rights Commission in regard that “labour practices in India’s gig economy constitute forced labour, in violation of Article 23 of the Constitution of India."

The notice stated that target-based incentives and extreme time-bound work create fear of losing incentives and “transform “choice” into compulsion, meeting the ILO threshold for forced labour through non-physical coercion.”

This is further intensified by ultra-fast service models, exacerbating mental and physical harm for gig-workers. 

While the government has taken affirmative action to address the issues raised in the gig-economy sector, Dasmahapatra said that “it is a systemic problem in the entire economy because the organised sector is shrinking very rapidly.” As a result of unemployment, more people end up joining gig-work as a temporary measure, but have to stay on for longer than anticipated.

Supply is exceeding the demand, and the platform companies are exploiting the workers as there is no strict regulation in India on how to monitor such kind of exploitation or regularise the working condition of the platform workers, he said. 

“And even as users, they are making us get so used to these things the ease of just ordering something and getting it at your doorstep,” he said, adding that we need to raise awareness amongst the consumers as well.