Zomato, in a regulatory filing, said, “Over the last few days we have made changes in the delivery partner payout structure with respect to the Blinkit business to address the needs of delivery partners, improve customer experience and reduce cancellation/ order rejection frauds by few delivery partners in the system. Such changes are done from time to time, as needed.”

BSE had sought a clarification from Zomato over an article published in a news magazine about the instant delivery service Blinkit being ‘temporarily unavailable’ after delivery partners launched a protest against the change in pay structure.

“We had to shut down some stores for a few days to ensure safety of our employees at stores and the delivery partners. Most of these stores have now resumed operations,” the company said in the filing with the stock exchange.

The Indian Express earlier reported that Blinkit had shut down hundreds of stores due to a shortage of workers after its parent company, Zomato, changed their payout policy.

Protesting workers told The Indian Express that they joined Blinkit last year when the fee was Rs 50 per order. However, it was reduced to Rs 25 per order last year, and has now been reduced further to Rs 15, with a distance-based fee component being introduced.

According to the workers, the new policy will slash their daily income by 40-50 per cent.

The protests have been going on for nearly a week now, but Zomato said in the filing that they have had no impact on the company’s operations. “These disruptions and changes have no material impact on the operations /financial performance of the Company (meaningfully less than 1% revenue impact) and hence we believe that this event does not warrant any disclosure under regulation 30 of the SEBI (LODR) Regulations, 2015,” it said.