Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal defends delivery partners over alleged traffic rule violations: ‘Indians are always in a rush’

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal has responded to accusations that delivery partners are violating traffic rules while trying to deliver “10-minute” orders. He blamed the impatience of the wider Indian society for this haste. In a post on X, he slammed critics of Zomato’s fast delivery and responded to accusations that its delivery partners were violating traffic rules.

Defending his delivery partners over traffic violations, the 42-year-old wrote: “If our delivery partners were the only ones breaking traffic laws, I’d take the blame.” Addressing allegations of delivery partners violating traffic rules, he added: “A large number of Indians are always in a hurry and breaking traffic rules. What is their ’10-minute’ incentive to do this? Nothing. We as a society are impatient on the road.”

He also stated that uniformed partners are more easily recognized, which causes prejudiced perceptions to surface. Deepinder Goyal claimed that other traffic violators went unnoticed as delivery partners were easy to spot.

Concluding the post, he wrote: “Let me explain why you usually only notice our delivery partners breaking traffic laws. Because they wear uniforms and you have a bias towards platforms to which you can attribute their behavior. But when someone without a uniform breaks traffic rules, you usually don’t remember it until later because there is no brand/platform to which you can attribute it.”

These remarks may be in response to a question posed by an X user named Ritu Joon, who questioned the delivery agent’s haste. He sought suggestions on some incentives to encourage delivery partners to comply with traffic rules and regulations. Wanting an honest answer, Ritu Joon wrote: “Why are they always rushing and breaking traffic rules? Is there any indirect incentive for this? This is not just an observation of one or two people, it is a very common observation that they are always rushing.”

Deepinder Goyal’s statement defending delivery partners over traffic rule violations comes a day after gig workers associated with express delivery platforms went on strike across India. Zomato, Swiggy and Amazon and other delivery workers went on strike on New Year’s Eve to protest low wages, lack of social security and poor working conditions.

Zomato increases delivery partner incentives amid protests

Zomato had increased delivery partner incentives during peak hours on New Year’s Eve, anticipating an increase in demand during the year-end period. However, it was emphasized that the incentive increase had nothing to do with the strike. “This is part of our standard annual operating protocol during festive periods, which typically see higher earning opportunities due to increased demand,” a spokesperson for Zomato’s parent company Eternal said in a statement.

Claiming that the incentive increase had nothing to do with the factory workers’ strike, Deepinder Goyal made a statement on Instagram on January 1. He said: “The support of local law enforcement helped keep a small number of miscreants in check and enabled over 4.5 lakh delivery partners on both platforms to deliver over 75 lakh orders (an all-time high) to over 63 lakh customers on the day. This happened without any additional incentives for delivery partners – New Year sees higher incentives than normal days and yesterday was no different from past New Year days.”