At Zomato, we’re committed to building an inclusive world by sharing our learnings from our own experiences with creating a diverse workforce in our company and value chain. In our previous diversity dialogue, we talked about the business benefits of having women in warehouses and dark stores. This one is dedicated to our learnings from an 18 month long journey of onboarding over 400 Persons with Disabilities onto Zomato’s platform as delivery partners.

Delivering food and livelihoods: The role of gig work in empowering PwDs

India has over 26.8 million¹ people living with disabilities, 31%² of whom reside in urban cities. Despite supportive laws and policies, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is at a shocking 64%. Thus, dignified employment and livelihood opportunities remains a key challenge for persons with disabilities in India.

Platforms like Zomato offer flexible earning opportunities with minimal barriers to entry. At present, anyone with a PAN card, knowledge of using a smartphone and riding a two wheeler can undertake deliveries and onboard themselves with Zomato as a delivery partner.

In December 2022, Project ZEAL was launched (Zomato’s Equitable Action for Livelihood) to explore if gig-based delivery work could offer livelihood opportunities for Persons with Disabilities. As on 31 March 2024, 400+ persons with locomotor disabilities, mostly wheelchair users, were onboarded on Zomato as delivery partners. These delivery partners have completed more than 6 lakh food delivery orders traveling over 15 lakh kms in 50 cities of India such as New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Amritsar, Bhopal, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Agra and Lucknow.

Making the impossible possible: Through technology, commitment and sheer self-belief

Project ZEAL was conceived in collaboration with Neomotion Assistive Solutions Private Limited, an IIT Madras incubated start-up that creates life transformative products for persons with locomotor disabilities and the elderly. They provide personalized wheelchairs ‘NeoFly’ as well as a motor-powered clip-on ‘NeoBolt’ which converts the NeoFly into a safe driving vehicle.

While Neomotion’s vehicles solved for the issue of mobility, Zomato also worked to reduce other barriers to entry including waiving onboarding fees, establishing a system to register wheelchairs separately and assigning wheelchair users only short-distance food order deliveries.

In addition, for every food order assigned to a wheelchair user, customers and restaurant partners are notified via the app that their delivery partner has special needs and are encouraged to lend a helping hand in handing over/ collecting their order from the delivery partner.

Wide-ranging impact

Initially launched as a pilot, the scale and variety of impact from project ZEAL has completely surpassed expectations. Zomato engaged Pacta as its research partner to study the impacts of Project ZEAL from a multi stakeholder lens

Impact on delivery partners

Impact on finances: Enabling independence through earnings
Due to scarce opportunities, persons with disabilities often resort to taking up earning opportunities that do not provide much stability or security. Associating with Zomato not only provides the opportunity to earn but working flexibly leaves room for rest and rejuvenation.

When interviewed, many delivery partners expressed that:

• Working as delivery partners has enabled them to earn after a long break or for the first time.
• Zomato offered them a higher earning potential compared to the other opportunities available to them.
• The instances of discrimination on grounds of their disability were very low.

A delivery partner spoke about the shift in their life post onboarding with Zomato, “Now I feel like I’ve got a new life. Zomato has given me an opportunity where I can proudly talk about my earnings with family and friends.

Impact on social life: From isolation and loneliness to friendships and communities
For ZEAL delivery partners, the opportunities for social interaction have increased multifold with both professional and personal benefits. Delivering food comes with multiple stakeholder interactions – restaurants, customers and fellow delivery partners. These stakeholders often offer encouragement and support that makes ZEAL delivery partners feel seen and appreciated. The ability to step out of their homes motivates delivery partners to travel independently, engage and build a community of friends.

Impact on both physical and mental wellbeing: A shift in the quality of life
NeoMotion’s customized wheelchairs allow for better physical comfort and lower strain, despite travel on bumpy roads. With their improved finances, ZEAL delivery partners are not only able to fulfill their basic needs but also go the extra mile in supporting their families. The increased social interactions have also helped partners fight loneliness and self doubt, harboring within these individuals for several years. With improved financial, health and social conditions, the overall quality of life for ZEAL delivery partners has seen an improvement.

Fiza, a ZEAL delivery partner from Bangalore, who has challenged multiple stereotypes says “I was not working before, this is my first working experience, it feels really good. Earlier I used to stay home and it impacted my mental health. I feel fresh and liberated as I step out. My mother often used to worry about my well-being, but I had the confidence and I tried onboarding with Zomato as a delivery partner. People are very supportive too. When customers see me, they encourage me to carry on my journey. I have stepped out after 11 years. I pay my own bills now.”

Impact on customers

Many customers who have interacted with ZEAL delivery partners while collecting their food orders have expressed profound appreciation for the latter’s resilience. Customers are surprised and often overwhelmed that their order has been delivered by someone with locomotor disability, overcoming both societal and infrastructural challenges. Many customers often take to social media to express their thoughts, and offer words of encouragement to ZEAL delivery partners. People on the streets appreciate, interact with and take photos with ZEAL delivery partners, making delivery partners feel seen and instilling a sense of achievement.

The project has helped break stereotypes about disability for customers. For many, it is the first time they have seen a person with disabilities as a contributing member of the workforce. Customer ratings, an indicator of customer satisfaction, are also high for ZEAL delivery partners – ranging between 4.5 to 5 stars.

Impact on the ecosystem of organizations working on disability

Zomato and Neomotion’s collaboration has galvanized the ecosystem of charitable organizations working across different aspects of disability, to directly and indirectly support livelihoods for persons with disabilities.  Civil society organizations have come forward to provide grant funding to help individuals purchase the NeoMotion wheelchair, some provide accessible residential accommodation and developmental support to ZEAL delivery partners, and others provide coverage of their food and living expenses. Project ZEAL has helped to  successfully unlock CSR and philanthropic funds for the cause of disability.

Learnings and key challenges

Allyship for new-onboards
Shortly after launching Project ZEAL, we realized that while many delivery partners had completed the onboarding process, they remained hesitant to start making deliveries. To address this challenge, we allowed new ZEAL delivery partners to shadow existing delivery partners, providing them with first hand experience and guidance. Additionally, we scheduled daily check-in and motivational calls from the Zomato team to offer support and encouragement to the new delivery partners, helping alleviate their concerns and boost their confidence.

Stakeholder sensitisation
Disability sensitisation proved to be an integral part of establishing an inclusive environment for people with disabilities in our fleet. We learnt that the discomfort in interacting with people with disability is based on lack of knowledge and stereotypes. Internally, we organized sensitisation and awareness sessions for fleet coaches which enabled them to have healthier interactions with our ZEAL partners and understand their requirements better.

Awareness and sensitisation of staff at restaurants and customers is equally important. We ensured both restaurants and customers were notified about the delivery partners’ disability and encouraged them to extend their support to the delivery partners.

Advocacy for accessibility of built environment
The city-infrastructure that the delivery partners navigate has not been fully built from an inclusive perspective, making it additionally difficult for delivery partners to do what may be perceived as “ordinary”. For greater inclusion we need to collectively advocate to make physical accessibility mandatory across our public and private infrastructure.

Diversified funding sources required for inclusion
Funding from government and domestic philanthropic sources remains a challenge in the disability sector. High quality assistive technologies today are far out of reach of people with limited means including millions of persons with disabilities. While the technology for Project ZEAL is currently funded by different charitable organizations and CSR funds, to achieve a scale, the goal is to be able to attract new sources of fundings/ finance for Project ZEAL.

Way ahead

Zomato is committed to growing Project ZEAL to 1000 delivery partners by the end of 2024 and creating an inclusive last-mile deliveries ecosystem that welcomes and supports people with disabilities. We welcome enquiries from organizations that seek to learn from our journey or contribute to making it possible for more PwDs to get on boarded as delivery partners: ProjectZEAL@zomato.com

In March 2024, Pacta, a law firm and policy think tank pursuing rigorous research on bridging gaps in implementation of laws and policy was engaged as a research partner to evaluate the one-year impact of Project ZEAL and identify pathways for scaling the participation of persons with disabilities in gig work. The above dialogue is an excerpt of PACTA’s detailed analysis with multiple stakeholders. We extend our heartfelt appreciation to all the CSR partners and stakeholders for supporting this research and making Project ZEAL a success.

1. https://www.nhfdc.nic.in/upload/nhfdc/Persons_Disabilities_31mar21.pdf ↩︎
2. https://www.nhfdc.nic.in/upload/nhfdc/Persons_Disabilities_31mar21.pdf ↩︎