Zomato will pay delivery partners more because of the high fuel prices, the company announced on Thursday. The Gurugram-based company said that the revised pay structure would include an additional component of distance pay that would be pegged to adapt changes in fuel prices. This comes just days after its several delivery partners went on strikes in various parts of the country, allegedly over inadequate income, saying that fuel prices were wiping out their earnings.

The revised pay structure will be applicable over and above existing remuneration, Zomato said in a statement. It will be adjusted on the basis of changes in fuel prices to compensate delivery partners for the cost they take on to carry out food deliveries. The company confirmed to Gadgets 360 that the additional component of distance pay will be directly proportional to the increase in fuel prices.

In addition to the new remuneration component, Zomato said that it had identified the impact of fuel price increase in case of long-distance orders and introduced long-distance return pay. This will either enable delivery partners making long-distance deliveries to either receive another order within 15 minutes that would bring them back closer to their base areas of working or they will instead receive an additional payout for travelling the extra distance they take while returning back from a long-distance deliver to their base-working localities to get another order assigned.

The new inclusions combined will increase the earnings of delivery partners by seven to eight percent, Mohit Sardana, COO of Food Delivery at Zomato, said.

“We have already implemented the new structure in about 40 cities and will be rolling it out in other cities in the coming week,” he added.

Zomato also said that it had increased its “focus to understand and solve proactively for concerns raised” through a weekly survey that they conduct with its delivery partners. This appears to be the company’s response to the recent strikes that took place in cities including Chandigarh.

Currently, Zomato claims to have a base of over 1.5 lakh delivery partners in its fleet. It is also in plans to strengthen that number further.

Zomato earlier this week raised $250 million (roughly Rs. 1,811 crore) at a valuation of $5.4 billion (roughly Rs. 39,100 crores). The company is also planning to file for its initial public offering (IPO) later this year.

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