Delivery riders across major Indian cities are seeing a decline in orders, lower utilisation and shrinking earnings as restaurants downsize menus and reduce operating hours amid a surge in commercial liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) prices driven by the military conflict in West Asia, said staffing firms and job platforms.
Riders are completing fewer orders per shift and earning less for the same time than before, they said.
Average orders per rider have declined 10-20 per cent in recent weeks during peak shifts, according to Suchita Dutta, executive director, Indian Staffing Federation. “Rider utilisation rates have declined modestly… while average earnings per hour hover around ₹90-110,” she said, adding that full-time riders could see a 15-25 per cent drop in weekly take-home pay.
The impact is uneven across the workforce.
Full-time riders are facing reduced shift availability and lower order volume, while part-time workers have more flexibility to pivot to other gigs. Newly onboarded workers are seeing the sharpest impact, with slower activation and fewer incentives, as experienced riders retain priority access to available shifts, Dutta said.
The slowdown is being driven by stress among restaurant kitchens, particularly cloud kitchens, and smaller operators dependent on delivery platforms.
“When gas prices spike, a cloud kitchen operator faces a binary choice of either absorbing the hit and destroying margins or reducing throughput. Most choose the latter,” said Kartik Narayan, chief executive-marketplace at Apna.co. This results in “fewer active hours, fewer menu items, fewer orders flowing onto the aggregator platform”, he said, adding that because delivery platforms are “logistics overlays on restaurant supply chains”, disruptions at the kitchen level directly affect order flow and rider earnings.
Early signs of this are also visible in hiring trends.
Job postings by employers on Apna in the delivery segment fell about 3 per cent in early March compared to January-February levels, indicating that restaurants are slowing or pausing operations.
Staffing firms say the trend has been visible since early this month across major urban clusters.
“In affected pockets, order volumes have softened, leading to lower rider utilisation, fewer peak-hour shifts and a slight decline in orders per delivery partner,” said Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO, CIEL HR. He added that the impact is most visible in Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi-National Capital Region, where cloud kitchens and independent restaurants dominate delivery supply.
Menu cuts are compounding the slowdown.
According to Sonal Arora, country manager at Gi Group Holding India, smaller restaurants relying on third-party delivery platforms are the hardest hit. “Reduced kitchen activity can lead to a reduction in orders, as many consumers may decide not to order out if their preferred food items are not on the menu,” she said.
Constrained LPG supply is also slowing kitchen throughput, according to Arora. “Restaurants with limited LPG supply cannot prep multiple orders simultaneously, leading to an increase in waiting time for riders. This is leading to a reduced number of deliveries per rider and lower incentives, which are an important part of their overall earnings,” she said.
