Zomato took X microblogging platform by storm on March 19, 2024 evening following its announcement of a ‘Pure Veg Fleet’ that will only serve orders from pure veg restaurants. As per a tweet by Deepinder Goyal, Founder of Zomato, “This means that a non-veg meal, or even a veg meal served by a non-veg restaurant will never go inside the green delivery box meant for our Pure Veg Fleet.” Goyal’s tweet garnered considerable flak from customers as well as the gig worker community regarding the decision’s impact on the treatment of gig workers by housing societies and concerns about the decision’s impact on the gig workers' functioning. Following the response by the public, Goyal announced changes to the Veg Fleet project, stating that there will be no “on-ground segregation of this fleet.” https://twitter.com/deepigoyal/status/1770039374295490799 Here’s how the whole saga went down Goyal’s tweet showed the Veg Fleet gig workers wearing green jackets and carrying green delivery bags – a departure from their usual red jackets and bags. Goyal said the fleet will be rolled out across India over the next few weeks and that similar specialized fleets will be rolled out for special customer needs. Pointing out that such explicit differentiation of gig workers could lead to discriminatory behaviour at the hands of resident welfare associations (RWAs), folks like Nikhil Pahwa, Founder of MediaNama, criticised the decision as an “idiotic move.” https://twitter.com/nixxin/status/1770044624800813244 https://twitter.com/nixxin/status/1770053443878896019 Others like novelist Meena Kandaswamy called the move “caste coded into food.” Others asked why Zomato,…
