Comedian Kunal Kamra has taken aim at the rapid-growth quick-commerce industry in India, accusing its leaders of exploiting gig workers for profit.
On December 31, Kamra called out Blinkit CEO Albinder Dhindsa on X (formerly Twitter), pressing him for transparency about the wages paid to delivery workers in 2024. “Could you share data on the average wages you paid your delivery partners this year?” Kamra wrote.
Kamra Asks Tough Questions
His comment came in response to Dhindsa’s celebratory post showcasing Blinkit’s New Year’s Eve sales figures, which included items like 122,356 packs of condoms, 45,531 bottles of water, and 22,322 units of Partysmart—highlighting the scale of deliveries made during the festivities.
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Starting 2025 on a provocative note, Kamra chose to critique what he sees as the exploitative practices underlying the quick-commerce boom. “As we enjoy the ease of quick deliveries, my first tweet of the year is about their darker realities,” he wrote. According to Kamra, the industry doesn’t create meaningful jobs but instead thrives on the labor of underpaid gig workers.
Kamra’s Dig at Blinkit and Other Like Platforms
He likened platform founders to “landlords without land,” accusing them of masking worker exploitation as freedom while failing to pay fair wages. “There’s no creativity or real innovation here,” Kamra claimed. “They sell the illusion of freedom to people who can’t afford it, all while offering wages that don’t match their dreams.”
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Kamra also raised concerns about how these companies profit from the vast amounts of data generated by workers, likening the practice to extracting oil without compensating those who produce it. “They’re profiting off data as if it’s oil, but they refuse to pay for the oil fields,” he wrote, warning that regulatory action could eventually bring them to account.
