Swiggy, Zepto drop ‘10-minute’ delivery tag after govt order

A day after Blinkit dropped its 10-minute delivery tag, Swiggy and IPO-bound Zepto followed suit. This comes after the government asked instant-delivery platforms to stop promoting their deliveries as “10-minute” services.

The government had held discussions with senior officials of Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy, and Zomato to do away with fixed delivery time limits to ensure safety of delivery workers.

Concerns about rash driving by delivery workers and low pay for not completing orders within 10 minutes have dogged the quick commerce sector, following which Union Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya called for a meeting with executives of the companies.

Eternal clarified that there was no change in the business model for its quick commerce platform, Blinkit. Founder Deepinder Goyal had taken to social media to clarify that the quick deliveries are enabled due to their wide and intricate network of dark stores, and not because of a time limit imposed on delivery workers.

Even so, all the four platforms assured the government that they would remove delivery time commitments from their brand advertisement and social media platforms.

The government’s decision comes after protests of delivery workers on New Year’s Eve, calling for resolution of issues related to rights, benefits, and security. The Gig and Platform Service Workers Union that called for the protest demanded the removal of the 10-minute delivery options that gave rise to unsafe speeding.