Every evening, India’s cities perform a small miracle. Groceries arrive before the tea is brewed. Dinner appears at the doorstep within minutes. A cab materialises almost as soon as it is booked. Behind every one of those deliveries is a person on a two-wheeler, threading through traffic, navigating potholes, racing against a countdown timer set by an algorithm he has never seen and cannot question. For the consumer, it is convenient. For the worker, it is something else entirely.
India had nearly 7.7 million gig and platform workers in 2020-21. By 2029-30, that number is projected to cross 23.5 million, according to NITI Aayog. According to the ILO’s World Employment and Social Outlook 2021, India accounts for nearly 20 per cent of the global online platform labour market. The platforms that those workers power — Zomato, Swiggy, Blinkit, Zepto, Ola, Uber, JioMart — are valued at hundreds of thousands of crores. The people keeping them alive are struggling to pay their rent.
>> Illusion of Earnings
In January 2026, Zomato’s former CEO, Deepinder Goyal, claimed the average delivery partner earns ₹102 per hour. The numbers on the ground tell a different story. A 2024 IDInsight study found that fuel, maintenance, repairs and mobile data account for around 32 per cent of gross earnings. Research by the East Asia Forum in April 2026, based on two months of fieldwork as a delivery rider, put the average net hourly take-home at roughly ₹42.
Shrikant, a Zomato delivery worker, is blunt. “After deducting fuel expenses, vehicle EMI payments, maintenance, mobile recharge, insurance, and daily operational costs, many delivery workers are left earning extremely low amounts per hour”, he said. “In several cases, workers struggle to even earn the equivalent of minimum wages despite working long shifts.”
Shaik Salauddin, Founder President of the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union (TGPWU) and National General Secretary of IFAT, puts it plainly: “Workers rarely take home ₹100 per hour after expenses. Many riders earn closer to ₹40 to ₹60 per hour in real income. Compared to three years ago, take-home earnings have generally gone down. Incentives have been reduced while fuel and maintenance costs have increased.”
The National Council of Applied Economic Research found that real wages of gig workers fell by 11 per cent between 2019 and 2022 alone. Similarly, a 2024 PAIGAM-IFAT study revealed that 43 per cent of delivery workers take home under ₹10,000 a month. The government’s own Economic Survey 2025-26 acknowledged that before costs, 40 per cent of gig workers earn less than ₹15,000 a month.
A delivery worker with a grocery app in Delhi NCR, who asked not to be named, has been doing this for a few years. He works close to ten hours a day and says his earnings do not cover rent and living expenses in Noida. “Earlier, when you start, the incentives are good”, he said. “But as time goes on, the targets become very high, and the benefits keep reducing.”
Many of his fellow riders have switched to electric scooties to cut fuel costs, but that has created a new trap. Electric scooties are slower than petrol bikes. In a job where delivery time determines ratings and bonuses, a slower vehicle means missed targets. Workers who escape the fuel trap fall into an algorithmic one.
The dead time compounds everything. In Delhi NCR’s gated high-rise societies, a single delivery can swallow twenty minutes before the rider reaches the door: security checks, the search for the right tower, and a wait for the lift. For a payment of thirty or forty rupees, the arithmetic rarely works.
Shrikant sees the incentive erosion across the board. “Incentive structures are frequently changed without proper consultation or transparency”, he said. “A worker who earned a certain amount one week may see earnings drastically reduced the next because the algorithm or incentive policy has changed. This creates instability and uncertainty in workers’ livelihoods.”
>> Always On, Never Secure
Vinod, a JioMart delivery worker, is direct about what this work demands. “A very large number of gig and delivery workers are forced to work beyond twelve hours every day to earn enough to survive”, he said. “This excessive working time leads to fatigue, stress, sleep deprivation, and serious health and safety risks.”
Dawood Ali, a Swiggy delivery worker, agrees. “Many workers remain online from early morning until late at night because short working hours no longer provide a sustainable income.”
The Prisoners on Wheels report paints a grim picture: 55 per cent of delivery workers spend 10 to 12 hours on the job each day, nearly 20 per cent work 12 to 14 hours, and almost half do not get even one day off a week.
Beyond the physical exhaustion lies an equally profound psychological toll. Research published in the Social Science Journal in 2025 found that irregular earnings, algorithmic surveillance and the absence of social security directly worsen gig workers’ mental health, raising measurable levels of stress, anxiety and depression.
Ghouse, a Swiggy Instamart delivery worker, has watched what happens when things go wrong. “Most platform companies promote insurance schemes publicly, but in reality, workers face major difficulties claiming compensation after accidents”, he said. “Workers are asked to submit multiple documents like FIRs, hospital records and app activity details. Many claims are rejected on technical grounds or delayed for months. During this time, injured workers and their families are left without income or support.” The reason, he says, is structural. “Companies classify workers as partners instead of employees. This loophole allows platforms to avoid accountability.”
Salauddin recalls writing to a major platform on behalf of a driver facing a grave medical emergency, asking for urgent support for a worker who had served the company for years. The company never responded. “When something goes wrong”, he said, “the platform is simply not there.”
According to a 2022 CIIE.CO study at IIM Ahmedabad, nearly 47 per cent of gig workers have no insurance of any kind. Only 7.4 per cent are covered by health insurance.
Sangam Tripathi, National Advisory Member at IFAT, frames the wider picture. “The overall working conditions of gig and platform workers remain highly insecure and exploitative”, he said. “Workers have no control over fare structures, account suspensions, or rating systems. Despite being an essential workforce, gig workers are still denied basic labour protections such as minimum wages, paid leave, health benefits, pensions, and workplace safety guarantees.”
>> Law Lags Behind
Salauddin identifies the legal contradiction as the main culprit. “Gig workers are treated as independent contractors when it benefits companies, but controlled like employees through strict algorithms and performance monitoring”, he said. “There is no proper grievance redressal mechanism or legal protection against unfair termination. That is why TGPWU and IFAT are demanding comprehensive legislation, including social security, minimum earnings guarantees, accident compensation, algorithm transparency, collective bargaining rights, and protection from arbitrary deactivation.”
India is responding, but slowly. The Code on Social Security, in force since November 2025, requires platforms to contribute to a worker welfare fund. The Union Budget 2025-26 promised health coverage for one crore gig workers. Telangana’s Platform-Based Gig Workers Bill, cleared by the Cabinet in March 2026, would mandate algorithmic transparency and a notice period before deactivation. Yet as of August 2025, only 3.37 lakh of India’s 10 million gig workers had registered on the e-Shram portal, according to the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
Rajasthan passed its gig worker law in 2023. Three years on, implementation rules have still not been notified. “All these schemes and social security have been under discussion”, Salauddin said. “But five years have passed now, and there is still no real benefit.”
An economy is ultimately judged not by the speed of its apps but by the quality of life of the people who keep them running. Right now, that quality is held together by habit, by necessity, and by the quiet hope that someone, somewhere, is finally paying attention.
