Saif, a rider with multiple quick-commerce platforms in Delhi, asserts that urban India can no longer do without doorstep delivery. Why, then, does gig work remain undignified?
On an April morning in South Delhi, Saif’s phone starts blaring. A timer goes off on his screen, indicating he has one minute to accept an order. He clicks “Accept,” the quick commerce app telling him he needs to pick up an order for a men’s perfume for ₹444 from the warehouse and deliver it 3.2 kilometres away. It doesn’t tell him how much he will earn. He will only learn that once the order is handed over and marked “Delivered” on the app.
Saif, 26, is a Delhi-based delivery partner for a number of India’s quick-commerce applications, including bike taxis, instant couriers, and food delivery. The sole earning member of his family of four, and responsible for his sister’s education, he has been relying on income from quick commerce apps for over two years now, having made a shift from working as a clothing designer at a local store to meet his family’s increasing financial needs. He works five to six days a week, 10 hours per day, shuffling between applications based on the one paying marginally more at any given time.
At 11 am on a Sunday, Saif arrives at his designated dark store—warehouses owned by quick commerce platforms to fulfil online deliveries—in the basement of a building in an upscale residential area in Delhi. His first course of action is to submit a real-time selfie to his delivery profile, which activates his ID online.
Companies demand real-time photos to ensure that those working with the company have been verified before joining as delivery riders, which includes a background check and an authenticated Aadhar card. This protocol also makes sure that gig workers are wearing the company’s uniform while delivering orders. However, gig workers have held that this process is tedious: it takes time and several attempts to have their photo approved. Once a sign-in is complete, a ‘delivery gig’ lasts for two hours, after which riders will have to follow the same process again.
Saif receives the order for the perfume only after his ID is activated. He then has to scan a QR code on an LED screen outside the warehouse, signaling he is ready to start work. He collects the items from the designated ‘picker’ (a warehouse worker who manages inventory, finds products, and packs items to be picked up for delivery) in the basement before completing the delivery.
“Great Job! Delivery Complete,” the app flashes on his phone screen, revealing that Saif has earned ₹47 on this delivery.
The amount is arbitrary. “This number keeps changing. On most days, for the same delivery distance, we could get as low as ₹35,” Saif said. “There is no logic or fixed calculation to this. It is a way to make a fool of us.” When delivery workers like Saif seek reasoning for this inconsistent pay, they are told they can quit since there are many waiting in line to replace them.
Inconsistent Income for Delivery Workers
The exploitative nature of this inconsistent pay is abetted by incentive systems. Incentives are earnings in addition to the base rate for deliveries after working for a certain number of hours, or finishing a certain number of orders. For this order, Saif earned ₹10 as incentive.
However, these incentives are contingent on unrealistic working standards. Each rider, when logging into the app, selects a delivery slot and duration that will determine their incentive—morning (10 am to 3.59 pm), afternoon (1 pm to 6 pm), night (6 pm to 3.59 am), or full day (4 am to 3.59 am). A rider must work consistently during these hours and finish a designated number of orders to be paid their incentive. While an incentive is added to each order, a delivery partner will only receive the incentive amount after finishing the entire shift. If a rider is unable to work for the entire designated slot, cancels an order, or denies more than one order, they will not get any incentive money, irrespective of the orders they have already delivered.
“Incentives are a way for the company to keep workers loyal to the platform,” said Viraj*, a researcher and a member of the Rajdhani App Worker Union (RAWU). Saif too is a member and the joint secretary of RAWU. Affiliated with the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, RAWU was formalised in January 2025 to advocate for gig workers’ rights in the Delhi NCR region. “Quick commerce companies always want to ensure a steady supply of workers, especially during times of high demand like festivals or cricket matches,” Viraj said.
According to him, dark stores from different companies operate close to each other, and incentives make deliveries seem lucrative for workers, becoming essential in convincing them to deliver for one company over its competitors. Incentives, then, are instrumental in retaining workers.
When Saif joined the delivery app after a recent month-long break—which he spent working for a different quick-commerce app—he was offered a higher incentive under the “Welcome Back Offer”. “[It] is there to lure you back into doing deliveries, but as you start working, the incentive amount will soon start decreasing, and the next day it will go back to the usual, lower price,” he added. Just like the delivery payouts, the incentive amounts are inconsistent and vary every day.
In his time working with the Union, Viraj found that companies make it difficult for delivery workers to earn incentives. Workers complain that the company directs fewer orders towards them at the end of a shift, especially when a rider is close to completing their allotted number of orders. “After they earn their incentive of the day, the workers will leave. But the companies want the workers to stay. Companies do not want this supply of workers to go anywhere,” he said.
The Demand For a Minimum Wage
The current payment infrastructure not only propagates daily insecurity for gig workers, but also ensures that wages remain opaque, without accessible and public knowledge of how much gig workers earn. It is because of this that RAWU and its members want to focus on demands to regulate and standardise the gig work sector in Delhi NCR. “Firstly, the money we get from each delivery based on the distance should be the same. We want these rates to be fixed throughout the week. Secondly, we want incentives to also be fixed and not change every day,” Saif said.
The demand for consistent pay for gig workers is tied to the demand for comprehensive legislations in the sector that ensure guaranteed minimum wage, regulated working hours, and social security. “There is no national guaranteed minimum wage for gig workers right now. However, there needs to be a fixed base rate that a worker earns after working for a certain number of hours,” Viraj said. According to him, there is a commonly held perception that gig work is an alien concept and cannot be standardised. But a fair minimum wage for workers can easily be calculated within the existing framework of labour laws. A report published by the All India Gig Workers’ Union (AIGWU) in 2024 stated that the effective minimum wages for gig workers should be ₹26,000 per month and this figure should be used to determine the minimum earnings for an hour’s worth of work on any gig work platform. “There needs to be transparency, and a clear breakup of how these costs are decided. We need to know how this system is working,” Viraj added.
In 2024, one of Saif’s friends invited him to his first union meeting, during which the concerns of the arbitrariness of quick commerce apps and the exploitation of gig workers at the hands of company owners were raised. While Saif earns an average of ₹25,000 per month working across multiple platforms, not all riders receive similar income. “They have to earn daily to pay rent, fulfil their daily needs, or even send money back home to their families,” Saif said.
The suggested monthly minimum wage, as per the labour department of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT), is lower than the monthly amount the union is advocating for: “unskilled” work must be paid ₹18,456 (₹710 per day) and “skilled” work ₹22,411 (₹862 per day). These figures too are a stretch; Saif’s average monthly expenditure hovers around ₹20,000, which the government’s suggested minimum wage would barely cover. But even these minimum wages are rarely adhered to.
There needs to be transparency, and a clear breakup of how these costs are decided. We need to know how this system is working.
A 2024 study conducted by IDInsight—a global advisory and data analytics organisation—finds that delivery riders in India earn an average of ₹170 per hour without deducting expenses. This figure is reduced to ₹115 when fuel, vehicle repair, and maintenance costs are accounted for, and is further lowered to ₹75 per hour when one adjusts it to include only those riders who work as delivery partners full-time, and remain active across both peak and non-peak periods.
In a yet-to-be published report by the Internet Research Lab, (a collective of researchers studying information and communication technology) provided to us by a member of RAWU, wage data from 10 to 12 workers from three dark stores in Delhi under one platform was collected using a chatbot developed to make the wage fluctuations that gig workers face transparent. From 23 data points around weekly earnings, the report finds that average weekly base earnings are ₹2,537 with very high variability, and average weekly incentives were ₹828, which also saw high variation. These pieces of data reveal the crux of the situation: there is neither transparency nor consistency in what gig workers earn.
Minimum wages versus actual earnings of gig workers:
Note: These figures have been calculated as per the Delhi Shops & Establishments Act (1954), which maintains that working hours must not exceed 9 hours per day, or 48 hours per week. According to RAWU, dark stores could be categorised under this act.
Figures 4, 5, and 6 have been derived using average daily earnings of a delivery rider reported by a 2024 study conducted by IDInsight, and projected as monthly figures based on working hours stipulated under the aforementioned act.
Dignified Work Means Clean Drinking Water, Access to Toilets, and Safety Measures
A couple of hours into his day, when Saif returns to the dark store, the sun is sharper, and the riders are sitting on the pile of blue and yellow crates, taking shade under the tin roof. Some are rushing to eat their lunch, others emerging from the basement carrying goods for the next delivery—a gift paper bag, a pack of Frooti, disposable spoons, and a few packets of chips. Today, the dark store has clean drinking water and a usable washroom. Both these facilities have been provided only after multiple strikes that Saif organised with support from RAWU in June 2025.
A little prior to these strikes, RAWU conducted an audit across 51 dark stores operated by major quick-commerce platforms in Delhi NCR, including Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart, Big Basket, and Flipkart Minutes. This report revealed severe deficiencies in basic amenities and safety standards for the workers, including lack of access to toilets, clean drinking water, rest areas, and first-aid facilities. According to the report, only 72 percent of dark stores are equipped with toilets for workers, and among those, 35 percent were lacking running water and regular cleaning. The report also revealed that 14 percent of stores provided no safe drinking water and one-third did not provide a designated space for workers to rest during a 12-hour workday. While 69 percent of stores claimed to have first-aid kits, most were locked or inaccessible, the report said. Additionally, 40 percent of stores had no designated parking facilities, “leaving workers at risk of harassment by police or road accidents due to unsafe parking.”
Key demands of gig workers, and how many stores are meeting them:
No Data Found
Source: Report by Rajdhani App Worker Union (RAWU), where 51 dark stores across Delhi NCR were surveyed.
*While 69% of stores claimed to have first-aid kits, most were locked or inaccessible.
“By unionising the workers and asking them to go on strike, I have improved the conditions of my store,” Saif said.“Earlier, they used to ask us to buy water from outside. A rider will earn ₹20 from one order. How will he spend ₹20 on a water bottle?”
When a strike is organised, riders show up at the dark store, log in to their IDs, but do not scan the LED screen. This registers on the app’s back-end as delivery partners physically present at the dark store, but not ready to accept orders. As a result, the orders ring into the dark store without being accepted, eventually causing them to pile up in the drop zone. Store managers will often try to lure the riders by offering 20-30 percent extra pay to accept the orders immediately and end the strike. “Some riders feel that if we’re getting this money, we should do the deliveries. But once you start accepting orders, the increased pay does not last for very long. It only lasts for about 60 to 90 minutes for up to 3-4 orders,” Saif said. “The next day, they will pay you much less to make up for this. The company loses nothing.”
Earlier, they used to ask us to buy water from outside. A rider will earn ₹20 from one order. How will he spend ₹20 on a water bottle?
When workers at one dark store go on strike, the platform starts directing orders to another dark store within three kilometres to ensure sales aren’t lost, making it increasingly important that all the stores in a particular zone location strike together. But organising workers and convincing them to gather in large numbers is challenging, Viraj said. “It is common for only 4-5 workers to protest outside the dark store and for others to go home eventually during the day,” he added.
Saif understands that organising is challenging for most workers, noting that it was especially hard for daily gig workers to strike. Simultaneously, he recognises that it is his right to do so. “I wasn’t afraid of getting blocked and losing my ID because I haven’t done anything wrong,” he shared. But for many others, the risk of loss of livelihood makes it hard to show solidarity during a strike.
“When a strike manages to sustain for 3-4 days with the dark store being out of operation, there have been instances when managerial employees from the company have been sent to the location, and the workers’ IDs have been terminated or blocked, quoting false reasons. They want to set an example by taking action against workers who are protesting.” Viraj said. In many cases, companies also have strong connections with the local administration and the police, he added. “They often also take their help to neutralise the situation.”
Rikta Krishnaswamy, an organiser with Rajdhani App-Based Workers Union, recognises that these challenges in organising are systemic. “People who come to gig work have already exhausted all their options in the organised and unorganised sectors. When someone has been in the workforce for many years without seeing any implementation of labour laws, it is difficult for them to understand that this is what we need to fight for,” she said.
If Gig Work is Essential Work, Let Riders Organise
According to a report titled ‘India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy’, NITI Aayog, a policy think tank of the Indian government, acknowledges concerning working conditions of platform-based gig workers, such as job and income insecurity as well as health and safety risks. However, the report maintains that platformisation serves to benefit India’s large informal workforce by offering “better incomes and experience of work”, “low entry barriers”, and “flexibility of work hours”. According to AIGWU however, the report fails to acknowledge how platforms leverage gig work to avoid employee protections.
According to Rikta, unionising and creating pressure groups is the only way to hold the government accountable. RAWU’s demand from the government is to identify all the work that falls under gig work, find the most approximate labour law that can be applied to the kind of work, and implement it. “For example, dark stores can easily come under the Shops and Establishment Act. The work is already tied to the local transport and retail infrastructure,” she added.
People who come to gig work have already exhausted all their options in the organised and unorganised sectors.
Instead, there is a mismatch between gig workers’ demands and the reforms implemented. For instance, the recent push to do away with the promise of 10-minute deliveries for quick commerce gig workers will have little impact on riders’ on-ground conditions, according to Saif. “There are dark stores every 3-5 kilometres in the city and so it is very easy for riders to reach the delivery location within 5-10 minutes,” he said. According to him, riders too want to complete orders faster in order to complete more orders, increase their earnings, and make their incentive.
“Removing the 10-minute delivery service became an unexpectedly popular demand during the protests in December 2025,” Rikta explains. “But for most delivery workers, it is actually quite low on the list of real issues they face daily. So it was surprising to see it become one of the central demands. An issue was made out of a non-issue, the government stepped in to ‘fix’ it, and then patted themselves on the back.”
Earlier there used to be a “rate card” provided to all the riders laying down their base rates, incentives, as well as a breakdown of their earnings, Rikta shared. When the riders started protesting against low wages, the company stopped sharing this information with them. “The company realised that giving them this data is leading to more strikes. Today, you ask any rider what their base rate is, they won’t know,” she said. AIGWU’s critique of the NITI Aayog report, of which Rikta is an author, reveals that platforms’ “algorithmic…management techniques have, in fact, been deployed at scale by platforms precisely to squeeze workers’ wages.” In lieu of meeting gig workers’ fundamental demands for more secure livelihoods, government rhetoric understands these simply as “challenges” of platformisation, championing it as a form of democratising and formalising labour.
Gig workers like Saif too recognise this exploitation as built into digital platforms, most evident in the platforms’ instinct to overhaul its worker base. He finds that it is common for companies to start terminating IDs for riders who have been working for over two years and hire new people. The reasons given for termination are arbitrary, according to Viraj. A delivery partner does not have the option to dispute the termination because of a lack of transparency and inefficiency of redressal mechanisms that can be attributed to structurally unresponsive technological systems. Workers are forced to engage with inadequate chatbots and denied appropriate human-led resolution when a grievance such as pay disputes or unfair deactivation and termination arise.
The company realised that giving them this data is leading to more strikes. Today, you ask any rider what their base rate is, they won't know.
The motive behind replacing an experienced workforce with a new workforce is to keep organising at bay, Saif asserted. “They want to terminate experienced riders who have been working there for a long time and get new riders who don’t ask any questions, so that their work can go smoothly”. The apps also provide referral schemes and incentives to lure existing riders into getting new riders to join.
While the government and quick commerce companies assert that platformisation offers choice and livelihood to India’s informal workforce, there is little acknowledgement of how vital workers are to the maintenance of these systems. To Saif, the aim is clear: he wants every rider to stop, think, and unionise. “Once the riders start using their brains, the company is at a loss. This system cannot operate without us.”
*Name changed upon request
Shreya Bansal is a writer, researcher, and journalist whose work revolves around climate justice and human rights. Her work has featured across various news outlets and publications in India. At The Locavore, she is an Assistant Projects Editor, and wants to tell stories sensitively, ethically, and accurately.
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