Blinkit, Zomato's quick commerce wing, is one of the biggest delivery platforms in India right now. The platform has huge storage as well as a massive network for handling deliveries, be it groceries, essentials or a smartphone. The FY2025-26 figures of the company reveal that it has a network of 31 lakh delivery partners for Zomato and Blinkit, and the numbers are expected to go up in the future.
But when it comes to handling delivery logistics, Deepinder Goyal, the company's founder, has something out of the box if the stress of delivering goods goes beyond capacity. Drones could be the answer to the mounting delivery pressure, the chief suggests.
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Goyal, while replying to a post on X (Twitter) from a user, said that if everyone was going to become a delivery worker in the next 15 years? In his reply Goyal said something that got people talking, “I hope not. We need better jobs. We will look forward to moving to drones when we don’t have enough people for the job.”
This might seem like an average reply but it does bring a new conversation to the table about the nature of gig work in India and the role that technology could play in the coming times. According to Goyal, drones could be a possible solution for deliveries in the future as the pressure mounts up, but obviously it is not a concrete plan. Expanding on that Goyal also said that Eternal, the parent company of Zomato currently supports somewhere around 1 per cent of livelihoods of India's total population and the fact that he wants to move that number up to 5 per cent.
Are There Any Drone Delivery Services in India?
For now this remains a region that needs to be explored but some companies have been trying this for a few years now. Swiggy went into partnership with ANRA Technologies in 2021 to make food and medical deliveries. Etah, UP and Rupnagar, Punjab were the locations where this was going to be tested, and whether drones could be used to transport these packages without a direct line of sight to be mediated by its operator.
Swiggy also tried the same with its quick commerce platform, Instamart, in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR region. Again, the idea was to utilise drone to make deliveries from their dark stores to a designated collection point from where a delivery partner could bring the product to the customer. None of these trials have as of now resulted into a market reality.
Are Drones Being Used In Other Countries?
This might not be a reality yet in India but other countries are using this technology. DoorDash is one example that can be found in the US, which has partnered with a drone delivery companies, which includes Wing Flytrex and Manna and is delivering food from select restaurants in select locations.
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Google is also playing a part in this business with its parent company Alphabet's Wing partnering up with giants like Walmart serving in many US markets. Customers in select areas can use this service through supported apps and receive deliveries at designated drop-off spots.
With all that said there are definitely restrictions to drone deliveries, like how much it can carry, package size, weight and more. Apart from that, weather conditions could also hamper the movement of the packages.