Blinkit’s New Year’s Eve Problem Wasn’t Logistics. It Was Labour.

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Blinkit’s New Year’s Eve Problem Wasn’t Logistics. It Was Labour.

Blinkit began 2026 the way every quick commerce company dreams of starting a year: with demand peaking, users flooding the app, and the promise of proof that 10-minute delivery is not just a gimmick but an operating system.

Instead, New Year’s Eve delivered something else. Hundreds of delivery partners across India went on strike at the exact moment Blinkit wanted to showcase its scale. What should have been a victory lap for Eternal-owned Blinkit and its parent Zomato turned into a public argument about accidents, incentives, penalties, and whether the gig economy’s most aggressive promise is structurally sustainable.

This was not a one-off disruption. It was a stress test of the entire quick commerce model, and Blinkit happened to be the company standing closest to the fault line.

Delivery partners protesting on New Year’s Eve were not choosing symbolism. They were choosing leverage.

Their grievances were familiar but newly sharpened. The 10-minute delivery promise, they argued, encourages unsafe driving and mental strain. Incentive structures felt arbitrary. Penalties and payouts were opaque. And flexibility, the bedrock of the gig economy’s moral defense, felt increasingly theoretical when algorithms dictated where, when, and how one worked.

The timing was brutal. Blinkit and Zomato wanted the day to reinforce their dominance during one of the busiest windows of the year. Instead, it forced the company to publicly defend not just its metrics, but its philosophy.

Deepinder Goyal’s Math Versus the Street’s Reality

Deepinder Goyal responded the way tech founders often do when challenged on labour. With data.

Despite the strike, he said, Blinkit and Zomato delivered over 75 lakh orders to 63 lakh users on New Year’s Eve, powered by 4.5 lakh delivery partners. Orders per minute hit an all-time high.

Then came the defense of earnings. According to Goyal, the average delivery partner on Zomato earned INR 102 per hour in 2025, up from INR 92 the year before. On paper, a delivery partner working 10 hours a day, 26 days a month, would net around INR 21,000.

More importantly, Goyal reframed the model itself. Gig work, he argued, is not meant to provide full-time employment benefits like provident fund or guaranteed salaries. It is designed as secondary, stop-gap income. The numbers supported his point, at least statistically. The average delivery partner worked just 38 days in 2025, and only 2.3% worked more than 250 days in the year.

As for safety concerns tied to 10-minute delivery, Goyal leaned on logistics math. The average Blinkit order traveled just over two kilometers. Average driving time was around eight minutes, implying a speed of roughly 16 km per hour. Not reckless, he argued. Barely brisk.

Why Some in Tech Are Sympathetic

Zomato is a listed, loss-making company trying to inch toward profitability. Cost control is not optional. Push costs too far, and the model collapses, taking lakhs of jobs with it.

On welfare, Goyal pointed to over INR 100 crore spent on insurance for delivery partners in 2025. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Info Edge and a shareholder, added that delivery partner welfare occupies significant boardroom attention.

From the company’s side, the argument was consistent. Blinkit cannot absorb full employee-style protections without breaking the economic logic of quick commerce. The margins are thin. The promise to consumers is speed and price. Something has to give.

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Where the Numbers Start to Crack

Labour unions and activists were unconvinced.

Their counterargument was not that Blinkit’s numbers were false, but that they were incomplete. Peak earnings, they said, are achievable only in premium zones, during peak hours, by top-performing riders. For delivery partners in smaller neighborhoods, or those working off-peak, the ceiling is far lower.

More critically, gig math often excludes unpaid time. Waiting between orders. Forced availability during rush windows. Deliveries in extreme heat or rain. Algorithms assign work. Penalties are automated. Appeals are limited.

Insurance, another flashpoint, also came under scrutiny. Critics argue Blinkit’s coverage often is not cashless, rarely covers long-term health risks, and does not account for the higher accident probability associated with time-compressed deliveries or the cost of maintaining electric vehicles.

The Regulatory Gap Everyone Is Waiting On

This is where Blinkit’s problem becomes India’s problem.

The Centre has notified new labour codes aimed at extending protections to gig workers, but timelines and enforcement remain unclear. States like Rajasthan and Karnataka have introduced their own gig welfare laws, yet implementation has been uneven.

Critics argue that without penalties, grievance redressal, and independent audits of platform algorithms, regulation will remain symbolic. Platforms counter that every new mandate raises costs that will either hit consumers or force pullbacks in already marginal markets.

Neither side is wrong. They are arguing from different survival instincts.

This Isn’t Just About Blinkit

Blinkit sits at the center of the storm because it leads the quick commerce market. But its peers are not structurally different. Instamart and Zepto operate on similar labour logic, similar incentives, and similar algorithmic controls.

Eternal’s scale simply makes it the most visible target. When something breaks at the front of the pack, everyone notices.

The real question is not whether Blinkit survived New Year’s Eve. It did. Orders were delivered. Metrics were posted. The app stayed live.

The real question is whether quick commerce can evolve its labour model without unraveling its economics.

Is a Win-Win Even Possible?

Here is the uncomfortable truth. Blinkit cannot dramatically increase pay guarantees, benefits, and protections without scaling back operations or raising prices. At the same time, a workforce that increasingly depends on gig income cannot operate indefinitely on uncertainty and opaque incentives.

Both realities coexist. Ignoring either is short-sighted.

New Year’s Eve was not a crisis. It was a warning flare. In a business built on speed, every accident, every viral complaint, every labour protest will now travel faster than the groceries themselves.

Blinkit may have weathered the storm. But this is not an issue that resolves overnight. In quick commerce, trust, like delivery time, is measured in minutes. And once it slips, the recovery is never instant.

Interested in learning more about quick commerce? Check out our previous coverage here:

• How Quick Commerce Apps Are Monetizing Your Attention

• The Great Reset of 10-Minute Delivery Apps in India

• Would growing quick commerce make Amazon/ Flipkart irrelevant?

• Quick Commerce in India

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Peeyush and Mohit

Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer, organization, committee or other group or individual.