Food delivery firm Zomato has revised the remuneration of its delivery partners to accommodate the fuel price hike, the company said in a statement on February 25. Rival Swiggy will be following suit and is likely to announce it in the coming days, according to sources.
As per Zomato, a delivery partner on its platform travels anywhere between 100 km-120 km in a day, consuming 60-80 litres of fuel in a typical month. The recent increase in prices amounts to an additional monthly spend of Rs 600-800 (about 3% of monthly income) from their take-home income.
Taking this into consideration, Zomato has introduced a revised pay structure for its delivery partners which will now include an additional component of distance pay. This component will be applicable over and above the existing remuneration, and will automatically be pegged to adapt to any changes in fuel prices in the future.
Zomato has also identified the impact of fuel price increase in case of long-distance orders since delivery partners are required to return to their base-working localities to get another order assigned.
Keeping this in mind, it has introduced long-distance return pay where for every long-distance order completed, its delivery partner would either receive another order within 15 minutes that would bring them back closer to their base areas of working or they will receive an additional payout for travelling the extra distance.
"We understand how fuel price hikes can impact their earnings and have decided to factor in such developments in their pay structure. Both of these inclusions combined will increase their earnings by 7-8%. We have already implemented the new structure in about 40 cities and will be rolling it out in other cities in the coming week," said Mohit Sardana, COO Food Delivery, Zomato.
The company which has 1.5 lakh delivery partners in its fleet is also planning to switch at least 10 percent of their delivery fleets, mostly two-wheelers, to electric in 2021.
Zomato along with rival Swiggy is in talks with electric scooter and bike aggregators like Zypp, Spinny and eBikeGo to do the same.
Fuel prices in India have been on the rise with petrol crossing the Rs 100 per litre mark in select places such as Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
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