Over 1,000 Blinkit riders join rivals after recent strike over wageReport

By India Today Business DeskOver 1,000 delivery executives of Zomato-owned Blinkit in Delhi-NCR have joined rival companies after the recent strike over a change in payout structure.

The delivery executives have joined rival quick commerce businesses such as Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, and Big Basket, reported The Economic Times quoting industry executives.

The development could be a fresh blow to Blinkit after it faced a week-long strike from its delivery executives, following its decision to alter the payout structure. It had reduced the minimum payout to Rs 15 per trip with a distant-based component, much lower than the fixed Rs 25 per delivery along with a peak hour incentive of Rs 7 per trip.

Several Blinkit delivery executives in the Delhi-NCR area protested against the move, leading to service disruption in areas such as Noida, Greater Noida, Delhi, Gurugram, Ghaziabad, and Faridabad.

While the company said operations have resumed, the Economic Times report indicates that multiple dark stores in Delhi and Gurugram remain unserviceable due to a lack of delivery executives.

It may be noted that Blinkit has around 200 dark stores in Delhi-NCR, and delivery executives use these warehouses to pick up goods that need to be delivered to customers within a 2-3 kilometre radius.

Quoting a person aware of the development, the report said Blinkit had close to 3,000 delivery executives in Delhi-NCR on its platform prior to the strike, but one-third of them have now joined other platforms after protesting for a week.

Also Read | ExplainedWhy Zomato-owned Blinkit shut down some dark stores in Delhi-NCR

At the same time, Blinkit has been bringing on new delivery executives to deal with the shortage since last week.

Some delivery workers who used to work with Blinkit said they were forced to move on to other rival firms due to the lower pay structure. There was hope that Blinkit would reverse its decision on the pay structure, but the company seems to have moved ahead with it.

While Blinkit had voluntarily registered some of its protesting delivery executives, it also suffered losses as order volumes rose at rival quick commerce firms during the strike.

The strike by delivery executives forced almost 100 Blinkit stores to shut down temporarily. They, however, reopened last week. A Blinkit executive told ET that protests were expected, adding that dark store managers were asked to shut down to maintain safety and security at the dark stores.

In a stock exchange filing on April 20, Zomato said the disruption at Blinkit had a minimal revenue impact on the quick-commerce unit, adding that most of the dark stores have now resumed operations.