Comedian Kunal Kamra reignited the debate on gig workers' rights, spotlighting issues like low wages, long hours, and lack of transparency in quick commerce platforms such as Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart. While companies claim to offer benefits like insurance and flexible shifts, Kamra has called for greater accountability and the release of data on worker conditions
Comedian Kunal Kamra rang in the New Year with an old debate around the social security and welfare of “gig workers”. This time, he turned vocal for people working as “independent contractors” with the quick commerce giants like Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart. While customers cherish the convenience of quick deliveries, Kamra highlighted the problems gig workers face in the 10-minute delivery process, including unfair wages and long working hours.
“While we enjoy the convenience of quick commerce, I’d like my first tweet of 2025 to be about the dark side. Platform owners exploit gig workers & they aren’t job creators. They are landlords without owning any land,” Kamra wrote on X (formerly Twitter) at the time when Blinkit CEO Albinder Dhindsa was live-tweeting the new record orders created by Zomato’s quick commerce arm.
On New Year’s Eve 2024, Dhindsa revealed that 1.2 lakh packs of condoms and 45,000 bottles of mineral water were out for delivery through Blinkit on December 31. It was not only a number of orders that the platform broke records, but its delivery partner also received the highest tip of the day, that is Rs 2,500 in Hyderabad.
But Kamra was more interested in raising questions about the cost of these achievements. “Can you also enlighten us with data on the average wages you paid your “Delivery Partners” in 2024?” he asked.
“They don’t have a bone of creativity or innovation all they do is to exploit people by offering them freedom that they can’t afford while giving them wages that can’t meet their aspirations. They are thugs, using data as oil without paying for the oil fields…,” he further said.
Adding to this, Kamra also pointed out the issue of “lack of transparency” in the hiring process of process gig workers as most of them “don’t have a copy of contract” they sign to become delivery partners at these quick commerce companies. The comedian, however, is hopeful of some regulations for the well-being of gig workers in future.
In India, the gig economy is still at a nascent stage in terms of rules and regulations. The country does not have any dedicated national law or policy for gig workers because they fall outside the binary classification of “formal” and “informal” labour regulations. But gig workers can find some mention about themselves in the government’s Labour Codes.
For instance, the Code on Social Security, 2020, formally defined gig workers and brought them under the ambit of various social security measures such as health and maternity benefits, life insurance, provident fund, skill upgrading, and disability insurance. As per this law, gig worker means a person who performs work or participates in a work arrangement and earns from such activities outside of traditional employer-employee relationship.
However, on the state level, some states like Rajasthan and Karnataka have taken proactive steps towards creating laws for gig workers. Of these, Rajasthan became the first state to have a law regulating the engagement of gig workers with the “Rajasthan Platform-Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023, aimed at providing social security and other benefits to these workers.
Similarly, Karnataka also introduced a draft Bill “Karnataka Platform-Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Bill, 2024” in its state assembly. Besides social security benefits, the proposed draft also includes a provision for imposing a financial penalty in case of non-compliance. In addition to this, it has already introduced the Karnataka State Gig Workers Insurance Scheme.
While some states have made strides in addressing the concerns of gig workers, the broader national framework remains under development.
On the national front, the Ministry of Labour & Employment is currently working on a scheme to provide social security benefits to gig workers so that they can be more productive and make greater contributions to the Indian economy. As of December 2024, India has approximately 65 lakh gig workers, but the number is likely to reach around three crore by 2030.
Additionally, Kamra mentioned the Indian Contract Act of 1872 which says that a contract between two parties where one party has an undue advantage of their superior economic position may be invalidated if they are found to be “exploitative”.
“A law from 1872 says, our democratic institutions that have the power to guarantee Dignity, Safety & Equality are busy elsewhere…,” he said.
The quick commerce giants, on contrary, claims that they offer several benefits like insurance, incentives, joining bonuses, and maternity leaves to their delivery partners. As per information available on official website, Blinkit’s delivery partners can earn upto Rs 50,000 per month, including incentives and benefits. It pays workers on weekly basis, with flexible shifts ranging from 4 to 10 hours. Other perks include Rs 10 lakh in accidental and medical insurance along with joining bonus of upto Rs 4,000.
On the other hand, Zepto also claims to provide Rs 10 lakh insurance and other perks to its delivery partners. And Swiggy Instamart also says it provides special provisions like maternity leave and period leave to it women partners besides timely payouts, other rewards, and insurance coverage of upto Rs 12 lakh.
Blinkit’s Dhindsa has not responded to Kunal Kamra’s tweets yet.
Kamra clarified that his criticism is not aimed at Blinkit alone but at the entire quick commerce ecosystem. “I am not against Blink-it alone all of them are abusing the unfair advantage they have over the unemployed,” he said while demanding the aggregate data on the working conditions of gig workers associated with them.
He proposed the release of data points on the number of delivery agents in 2024, number of hours they had put in, distance traveled, the number of deliveries, money annually paid to per rider last year, accidents or deaths at work and compensations given to affected workers.
“If you can’t disclose this under the grab of data privacy, just a reminder sensitive customer data was store in China’s Alibaba by “some” of you before you grudgingly moved it to AWS,” he said, while raising questions of the labour ministry and Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
Outlook Business on January 2 reported that the labour ministry instructed the committee tasked with developing a framework for providing social security and welfare benefits to gig and platform workers to submit its report by the end of January.
The update comes amid the ongoing debate over gig workers’ right, not only in quick commerce segment but also across other sectors like ride-hailing platforms. As India’s gig workforce grows, the onus lies on both policymakers and corporations to ensure fair treatment, dignity, and safety for such workers.