Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha stepped into the shoes of a gig worker for a night to understand firsthand the pressure, risks, and challenges they faced. This came amid a key policy shift, with Union Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya announcing that major platforms such as Blinkit, Zepto, Zomato, and Swiggy would drop the mandatory 10-minute delivery deadline after sustained interventions to improve working conditions.
The Aam Aadmi Party leader has repeatedly raised gig workers' concerns in Parliament and earlier this month, joined Shivam, a Blinkit rider from Haryana, for a full night shift in Delhi's biting winter.
“Today, I will become a Blinkit rider and go door-to-door at night making deliveries,” he began the video uploaded on YouTube on Monday. “I will try to understand the challenges that Blinkit delivery riders face every day. The goal is simply to make the invisible visible.”
Shivam, a rider for a year and a half, revealed the realities of the job.
Sharing tea and peanuts with the MP, he said, “There were a lot of expectations. Earlier, people used to say that the salary is Rs 40,000-Rs 50,000. Later, I realised that for all the hard work, you get only half of that.”
His workday begins at 7 am and often stretches until 11 pm, leaving him with only two to three hours of sleep after cooking, eating, washing clothes, and bathing. “Sir, it's a lot of hard work,” Shivam told Chadha during the ride-along.
The app, he showed, would fluctuate distances, and riders often have to take risks, including riding against traffic, to meet the delivery timeline. “If I don't take the wrong side, the customer will say I'm late, and then the order will be affected,” Shivam explained in the video.
One 2.7 km delivery took 19 minutes and cost only Rs 44. For return trips, riders are not reimbursed.
Shivam revealed the demands of the job, recalling that on his most exhausting day he completed as many as 54 deliveries, working continuously for 17-18 hours without food or even water.
Despite the physical toll, the earnings remained painfully low, amounting to roughly Rs 1 per minute, with riders forced to bear all additional costs themselves, including fuel, food, and daily expenses, leaving little to nothing as actual take-home income.
“Once you've delivered and gone back, your commission is gone, the goods are sold, everything is done. If you die on the road, who cares? No one at home will lift a finger. Your mother, sister, father, children… they wait for you. The company doesn't care,” he said.
Asked if he's ever been in an accident in the rush, he said, “Once my hand broke, once my leg broke. Even with a plaster on my hand, I still worked. Once my leg was injured, it completely tore open here. I still have many scars.”
“Because of that 10-minute target, I had many accidents. I also had many accidents chasing incentives. If an order is late, the customer complains. The company doesn't provide insurance. I never received anything. I gave the papers and even paid for private treatment… nothing. Not a rupee,” he said.
Shivam said that even after sending photos of his injuries, he was asked to complete deliveries or face penalties. “They said I must deliver the order, my incentive would be cut. I said I can't deliver. They said I'd get penalised,” he recalled. Complaints from customers, cancellations, or system errors, he said, often lead to arbitrary penalties and incentive cuts.
When Chadha asked about his dreams, Shivam revealed that he had once aspired to join the Indian Army, but now he spends long hours on the road defending orders instead of the nation.
Shivam earns between Rs 22,000 and Rs 24,000 a month, out of which Rs 9,000 goes towards bike rent alone. Food, fuel, and repair costs further reduce his savings. He works every day of the month, logging 13-14 hours daily, under constant pressure to remain online to secure orders. He also recounted instances where orders were stolen, customers fled, or technical glitches led to penalties, with little to no support from the company.
“People's voices are now being heard. Discussions have started nationwide. I hope this leads to real change for worker safety and earnings,” he said.
