Daybreak - The case against 10-minute delivery

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

10-minute delivery has quickly gone from novelty to expectation.In this episode, through conversations with delivery workers and the gig workers’ union leader, host Snigdha Sharma argues how the 10-minute delivery model intensifies existing problems in gig work.Is it is a promise we really need to be kept for us? Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me. My interruptions, my analogies and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording.

Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get alert, as soon as we release our first video. episode, please follow intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcast or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. Strike to have no problem. And yet, more than two lakh delivery workers across the country participated in the flash strikes on the 25th and 31st of December to demand better pay and an end of 10-minute deliveries.

The voices that you just heard saying strike or no strike, we lose either way, were two blanket delivery workers from Bangalore. And they knew about the nationwide strike, they supported it, but they chose not to participate. Soon after these strikes, the delivery platforms allegedly came down heavily on gig workers who participated in them. They simply blocked their IDs, and that, is kind of permanent. Here is what happens.

Once an ID is Adercard Pankard and other ID can't because Athercard Pankar it is a single-a-one-a-a-a-dhury If you have to do it, a selfie push out of it. Once an account is frozen, it stays frozen because these apps are linked to Aadhar

and need photo verification so you simply can't create another login and start again. Which is why, I think asking whether the strike was a success or not missed something quite fundamental. In the days following the protests, much of the public conversation has been focused on outcomes without really accounting for the cost gig workers face for simply participating. In fact, even for the ones who chose not to participate, first the incentives were better than usual. 31st-tenth-tenth-tarchs to every order per morning session in 30.

Then, the lunch session, for $50, and dinner session, for order. But if someone had a five, 10, 15 minutes for a duty off, so they've got a full, the whole, they have all of them. This is the people. If you're incentives, if you give them per order, then... How can they?

This audibly agitated delivery worker that I spoke to Ingoa told me that on strike days, some platforms increased incentives for those who continued working. But the catch was time. If a worker logged off even for 15 minutes, the entire incentive for the day disappeared. So all of this really goes on to show pretty clearly how these platforms look at the strikes. Soon after the December protests, Mattos CEO Depender Goel referred to workers who participated as miscreants on a social media post. That is a strange word to use for his own workers, don't you think?

Because a strike is a collective action by workers. So calling those workers miscreants reduces them to just troublemakers. And then what happens is that the conversation moves away from why so many people logged off in the first place. In this episode, I spoke to delivery workers. the leader of the gig workers union about the promise of 10 minute deliveries, how it is sold, who needs it and why the idea of it may be doing far more damage than we are willing to admit. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nick Dha Sharma, and I don't chase the new cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Rachel Varghees and I will come

to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Thursday, the 8th of January. For much for the income I need to work. Here's a degree

there's a not a without degree money for the money. For most of the

workers that I spoke to delivery work was not really a choice. It was the only option to survive

in the big city. These platforms do not ask them for degrees or for work experience.

All they need is a phone and a vehicle and they can log in and start making money.

And that is also why gig work is often talked about in India as flexibility, as opportunity, and sometimes even as a response to the country's job crisis. But workers describe it very differently. None of them described the 14, 15-hour work days, riding through traffic, climbing stairs, carrying heavy packages, dealing with angry customers as something that they wanted to be doing, especially for what the work now pays.

It's over. Garnings Gering came Yeah, it's How many? I mean, which is up? I mean, it's

$35. First, we'd have to be $50. $35 for one delivery. Two kilometers, nine minutes. First, it was 50s. Forty-st and 50 to 50.

And when their earnings start falling, there is very less room for them to slow down. And even basic breaks start to feel negotiable. Listen to this. That was a lot of,

I was going to be 1 o'clock, so I said, so I'm going to get to be, I said, I'm saying, I'm going to be

like the order and you'll know, you'll know, I'm going to say, I'm very gris over, I said,

I said, sorry, sir, he had been there, but said, no, you're going to you're

going to go ahead, he's going to say, he's saying, we're going, we're we're doing,

we're we're the person, that was a Swiggy Instamart worker who moved to Bangalore from Behar less than a year ago. He told me he had not eaten all morning on that particular day. And when he finally stopped for food around one in the afternoon, his delivery ran late and the customer was angry.

Now, he is still learning Canada, which makes moments like this quite hard for him to explain. Every day, quick delivery workers need to fulfil a target number of deliveries. And if they don't meet it, their earnings take a hit. 3035-35-trial, so that's fuller to do that 500 or 500 incentive

means. So, so I don't make a target poor not single- order out of not can't

do you. The thing is, the 10-minute delivery promise came up in a very crowded market.

Competition in the food and grocery delivery business was intense. Money was pouring in

from all directions and platforms were slowly losing ways to differentiate themselves from

one another. which is how speed became the differentiator. It is easy to advertise, easy to measure and easy to believe in. Nobody asked for it really, but it didn't take us very long to feel like it was progress. Shorter wait time, smoother deliveries. I mean, we can now even choose not to see the person who is bringing us our things. Leave it at the doorstep is an option on these apps. Plus, there is the whole thrill of it.

getting an AC or an iPhone delivered in 10 minutes. So, you see, we got used to it very quickly. Ten minute became the new normal and then it was expected. And once that expectation sets in, slowing down starts to feel like failure, even if nothing about the product itself has changed. So what really is the cost of the speed that we have gotten so used to? One incident in Hyderabad, Telangana accident was

up to 5th 6th day have had, now still they've got no insurance not. They're in serious condition in hospital in the hospital

in the now. I've got reached he had not I've got on Twitter on Twitter on T-G, P-E-P-W on.

It's no question of any of the 10-minute delivery is, can't be that's in

insurance be there's not to be here? But why not it's the most the biggest question is and that

they've got $100 crore money of the insurance up so what's

what I'm doing we're what I'm people that was Shake Salaluddin you have

heard him on daybreak before he is the founder and the president of the Telangana

Gig and Platform Workers Union and he was talking about a delivery worker who was

injured in an accident while on duty Sheikh Bai actually put it quite simply

he said if deliveries can be completed in 10 minutes, then why not things like compensation and insurance? All of the six workers that I spoke to for this episode echoed the same about accident insurances. One told me, in fact, that another worker, quite close to where I live in Bangalore, got

stabbed while delivering, and he had to wait for days and go through all kinds of bureaucracies to get his insurance money. If something like, something like, you said, you know, it's not, you, this is, your So, here's the other cut, come up, something else, say, they're rejecting. So, I'm going to. So, I'm going to do with the shop in, but but nobody's no money

have. So, here's the thing. Accidents happen all the time, and in many kinds of jobs. It is the imbalance that is the issue. You saw it everywhere in the story, in the fear around striking, in the long hours, the skipped meals, and how insurance drags on,

even though deliveries are measured in minutes. Delivery work is going to exist, convenience is not going anywhere, but it is about how much pressure gets packed into the system when speed becomes the main purpose. The 10-minute delivery sits on top of a gig economy where workers are still treated as contractors and where basic protections are not in place for them. Support usually arrives late if it arrives at all. Now, there have been some moves to recognize gig workers in law through the Social Security bill

and yes, that matters. But recognition has yet translated into everyday security. Accidents, falling pay and penalties still land on workers first. The 10-minute delivery promise does not create these problems, but it makes them harder to ignore and leaves very little room to slow down and think about how all of this is playing out. What we should think about is what kind of work has to exist to make this 10-minute delivery possible

and whether we are comfortable letting that become the new normal. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of a subscriber-only offerings and a full subscription offers daily, long-form feature stories, newsletters and a whole bunch of premium podcasts. To subscribe, head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by my colleague, Snitha Sharma, and editor-ed. by Rajiv Sien.