Drivers, Many Of Them Women, Bear the Cost of BluSmart’s Collapse
Last month, BluSmart, an all-electric ride hailing service abruptly halted its operations. The company was a unique opportunity for its women drivers but lack of labour rights have left them in a lurch
Ragini*, wearing the sky blue uniform shirt with the BluSmart emblem over her kurta, sits in a sea of grievances. There are placards that object to the sudden suspension of more than 10,000 drivers overnight and appeal for compensation and government support.
Ragini and her friend Ambika* hold another one asking for worker unions. “BluSmart ki vajah se hum bahar nikle hain. Inhone hi humein kaam sikhaya hain. Inhone humein road pe aane ka mauka diya (Blusmart taught us a skill, put us on the road and then ousted us),” says Ragini, who was a homemaker till she joined the electric cab hailing company.
About a month ago, BluSmart’s fate turned, disrupting the livelihoods of thousands of drivers like Ragini. The company temporarily paused its operations in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on April 16 found that its cofounders Anmol Singh Jaggi and Puneet Singh Jaggi were using Gensol Engineering, another company they promoted, as a “personal piggy bank”.
Gensol Engineering procured electric cars which were leased to BluSmart, helping it become a popular ride hailing service that had India’s largest fleet of electric vehicles with 8,000 cars. The brothers are accused of diverting money loaned by state-owned lending agencies to procure 1,700 electric cars towards buying gold and high-end apartments.
BehanBox spoke to drivers and experts to piece together the BluSmart story, a reflection of the promises, perils, and conspicuous silences that engulf platform work in India.
After SEBI’s interim order, BluSmart’s drivers were asked to immediately return their vehicles to their station hubs for ‘audits’. Since then, the drivers have been unemployed and unpaid. And any request for information or updates about their futures from the drivers have been met with silence or abuse, they allege.
Many drivers are the sole earners in the families and are struggling to pay for their children’s fees, settle loans and meet daily expenses; those who migrated from neighbouring states are unable to pay their rent. Women, who were engaged in low-paying jobs or unpaid care work before, are struggling to find other alternatives in an otherwise male-dominated mobility market. No one wants to hire women drivers or a ‘Blu’ worker in general, drivers say, because of market disrepute around the scam.
BehanBox sent a questionnaire to BluSmart on May 7 about their practices and the support, if any, they are offering their aggrieved drivers. This story will be updated with their response.
The company that employs more than 10,000 drivers, had targeted initiatives to encourage and train more women drivers and “foster gender equity in the mobility sector”. Unlike competitors like Ola and Uber, BluSmart, through its structure and training efforts, tried to provide a supportive environment for women drivers. It leased the cars, instead of putting that onus on the drivers, and this became one barrier less for women.
Moreover, it also gave drivers a base pay, flexibility in choosing their hours, and a weekly off. The company did not take a proportionate cut from each ride as commission but took a fixed Rs 1,700 every day as the lease amount for the cars. While the company has not released any data on the number of women drivers it employed, estimates put it at 150 or more.
“Inhone humein acche acche sapne dikhaye, lekin last minute mein aakar berozgaar kar diya (they let us dream and then left us unemployed),” says a rueful Ragini. About 50 drivers staged a protest in Jantar Mantar on May 4 demanding clarity and compensation from the company, and sought government support.
Gaps in corporate accountability and labour policies catering to the unique needs of the gig and platform economy are the primary reasons for crises like these, researchers say. The existing policy efforts focus singularly on providing social security for workers, but a more robust labour-rights driven policy outlook is needed to protect and empower workers, they say.
Easy Entry, Higher Pay
For Ambika who joined the company last year, BluSmart was the preferred choice over rivals Ola and Uber. There was more money, she says, but what convinced her were the flexible work timings that allowed drivers choice of shifts – 6, 8 and 12-hours. And unlike other companies, they hired ‘freshers’ like Ambika who came with no driving skill and had no resources to invest in personal vehicles.
India’s ride-hailing market, huge and growing, is buzzing with local and global players competing for the largest marketshare. It is also scrambling for ways to increase women’s participation. BluSmart launched its ‘Sakhi’ initiative in 2022; Bengaluru-based Namma Yatri app decided to onboard women as auto-rickshaw drivers; Uber last year piloted the ‘Moto Women’ service in Bengaluru offering women-only bike taxi services.
There’s no official data on women in gig work but the platform-based gig economy has seen a surge in women’s participation, especially in traditionally ‘feminine’ jobs such as domestic services, childcare, beauty work, or home-based retail enterprises. The barriers to entry are higher in male-dominated professions such as ride hailing services or food delivery. Many do not own individual vehicles, and face resistance from families on the issues of safety and timings that interfere with unpaid caregiving duties.
Far from being erased, occupational segregation and feminisation of labour have simply followed them into the gig and platform economy, says Sadhana Sanjay, the lead of research and policy engagement at IT For Change, an NGO working to ensure that digital technologies contribute to human rights, social justice and equity.
BluSmart was the more accessible option to women because of their approach which was not “techno-deterministic”, like the latter two companies, says Sadhana. “Ola and Uber came with the promise of creating jobs for women and says that there will be no barriers for women because everything is through technology. And that technology is this great equaliser, because all one needs is a smartphone and internet to be a part of the workforce,” she explains.
BluSmart, in contrast, understood the material and cultural barriers women face, and offered logistical, technical and financial support to offset them.
The differences begin with BluSmart’s core model that provided drivers with vehicles and higher predictability about rides, destination, routes and customers. Both these aspects made it work better for women drivers, says Soujanya Sridharan, a senior manager at Aapti Institute, a research organisation that works at the intersection of technology and society.
“When we look at women’s asset ownership, be it something as simple as smartphones to as complicated as land, we find that women don’t own assets and even when they own, it is largely controlled by male members of the family. BluSmart removed the asset ownership complication that a lot of women drivers face by leasing the cars,” she says.
Moreover, because BluSmart began as a pre-booked service, there was higher predictability to the work, as we said earlier. “Many times, women drivers do not want to do late-night rides and sometimes even if they do, they might only ply female customers,” Soujanya says.
For the ‘Sakhi’ programme, the company partnered with government and non-government agencies to train women, after which they were enrolled into the BluSmart fleet. Ambika, Rajini and many other workers became aware of a career in ride hailing or BluSmart through NGOs and local job fairs that targeted both women and their families. They heard that the Automotive Skill Development Council (ASDC) was teaching girls and women driving skills for free and this training would translate into an official license to work with BluSmart. The drivers were trained on theory, rules and regulations, received hands-on practical lessons and a safety training.
This training, in a society where women were not encouraged to enjoy mobility or possess driving skills, was one reason why it attracted women drivers, says Sadhana.
Ragini, who joined last year, recalls her family resisted in the beginning, worried about her safety. “But once they saw that I was passionate about driving, the timing didn’t interrupt my work at home and I was earning good money, they supported me,” she says. She also enjoyed the sense of freedom and independence the job brought her, along with the promise of being able to support herself and add to the income of her debt-ridden family.
The ownership of one’s own car further emboldened the women, allowing women like Ambika to explore corners of the city they could never dream of accessing. “Hum housewife hain, humare ghar mein car nahi hain…Iski vajah se hum bahar nikal sake (I am a housewife and we didn’t have car have but this gave us the chance to go out),” Ambika says with a nervous smile. “Kabhi kabhi jab kaam nahi tha, hum mast mein song chala kar drive karte the (in my free time, I would sometimes just drive and play some music).” She would get up at 5 am, pack tiffins for her two children and clean before leaving for work, and return home around 5 pm, back to household and care work.
Women tell BehanBox that their work conditions were safe and any complaints about technical disruptions would be dealt with on time. The station hubs where they would park the cars would have separate restrooms (equipped with menstrual pads) and resting areas. “We faced challenges in using toilets in between rides, but we could still manage it. All these other companies like Ola and Uber don’t usually give chances to women; even families won’t allow us to do this work, but at least we had an opportunity,” says Raja, a 27-year-old driver who also joined the company last year.
BluSmart’s higher incentives also appealed to Divya*, a 27-year-old college graduate who earned money doing government surveys before this. Their model promises drivers a base salary and overtime pay in addition to incentives, depending on the kind of vehicle one drives, drivers say. Even though the company didn’t take commissions there were expenses – the lease cost we mentioned earlier – but the weekly income would still be higher than what other job opportunities offered.
“Jo hum pure mahine mein kaam karke kamayenge, voh hum BluSmart mein ek week mein kama paa rahe the (Blusmart earned us in a week what others got us in a month),” says Divya, referring to her weekly income that ranged between Rs 6,000-7,000.
And then came the blow.
Pattern of Neglect, Exploitation
For all the advantages it held for workers, worker issues rampant across platform-based gig work were reproduced at Blusmart to a great degree, says Nitesh Kumar Das, organising secretary of the Gig Workers’ Association.
Drivers who have been with the company since 2019 tell BehanBox of a pattern of neglect, harassment, ID blockages, and arbitrary penalties that had become evident in the last six months.
Amit Kumar*, who has been driving for 23 years now, alleges that the company was “stealing” workers’ money by abruptly lowering their incentives. His income had diminished by half, from Rs 40-45 per hour to Rs 25. Other drivers agree and explain that the incentive for specific cars – say Rs 12,000 per week for an MG ZS car – had come down to Rs 4,500.
Grievance redressal applied to only technical concerns about the car; otherwise, drivers were left to fend for themselves and even pay for expenses out of their own pockets, they say. Vineet*, who joined BluSmart three months ago, says the company deducted the cost of new tires and stepney from his salary when a tire burst while on duty. He says he had reminded the management to get it changed on multiple occasions.
“Drivers accept penalties for being late, but we are also being penalised for these [kinds of] damages or if there is an issue with the app or the network,” he says. Concerns about incentives or penalties were met with aggressive responses, and threats of blocking IDs, he alleges.
They are also dealing with the unintended consequences of availing facilities designed to offer freedom. Drivers could opt for a charge-at-home service where, instead of taking their electric cars to the closest station hubs, they could pay a security deposit of Rs 5,000 and opt to park the car at home. BluSmart would reimburse them for the electricity charging bills on a weekly basis.
Harvinder Singh, who has been with the company for two years, took a one-room paying guest accommodation with parking space in west Delhi’s Vikaspuri – it would save him approximately three hours a day in travel. Since work stopped last month, he has had no income and has not been compensated for charging the car. “How do I keep paying rent now? I have an agreement of 11 months, I can’t just leave,” he says.
Many have taken loans and are struggling to pay their children’s fees. If they had been forewarned of the impending closure they could have sought out other job options, says Amit who has two daughters, both enrolled in wrestling classes. “One has a national championship coming up next month, how do I pay for it?” Amit asks.
India’s ride hailing market is vast with new and old players – Uber, Ola, Rapido, inDrive. The government announced a new ‘Sahkar Taxi’ initiative that would be “just like Uber and Ola”, take zero commission, and ensure “democratic management” by its drivers under the cooperative model. But the drivers we interviewed say they are stuck with the disrepute of having worked with BluSmart.
It’s harder for women workers who have to contend with switching paths or exiting the workforce altogether. Deepa, who is the sole caretaker of her parents, says no cab company is willing to hire women drivers due to a perceived lack of skill and experience in this field. Unlike men, they do not have the means to own a car or take up an independent driving business. “Humein koi rakh nahi raha aur hum ghar par baithe hain (no one wants us so we are sitting jobless at home),” she says.
BehanBox has reported earlier (here, here, and here) how precarity is built into the design of platform companies. Barring two WhatsApp messages about a two day audit, Blusmart’s ex-drivers say they have no updates.
At the Jantar Mantar protest site, as the dharna draws to a close, Ambika takes off her BluSmart shirt and wraps her white dupatta around her neck. Her daughter has been waiting on the sidelines, watching her mother, and the two plan to visit the observatory. Like other drivers, Ambika says she is scared of company retaliation. “But someone has to answer to us,” she says.
Structural Evasion of Accountability
The Blusmart story is emblematic of how privatised capital is allowed to run amok with little to no oversight in India, says Soujanya, pointing to messy start-up failures like in the case of Bharat Pe. “The board of these two companies [Gensol and BluSmart] should have been the ones advising these founders, keeping an eye and reporting to SEBI and other regulators. None of which happened,” she says.
Without this oversight, it is the workers who bear the burden of uncertainty, indignity, and loss of livelihood. As Jai says, workers are being made to pay for the fraud perpetrated by the owners.
Then there is the precarity built within platform work. Platform companies sell themselves as faceless flexible workplaces without a boss. “But there is a boss, which is the algorithm. They are constantly responding to what the algorithm demands of them,” says Sadhana.
Algorithms determine pricing, assign workers to specific places (in case of location-based services) and tasks/gigs, and set certain targets to be achieved in a set timeframe—all of which are linked to a system of payments, rewards, and ratings, says Eesha Kunduri, a PhD scholar of labour and urban studies at the University of Minnesota. “Failure to meet a certain threshold of ratings can lead some apps to deactivate workers’ accounts, while platforms can also use low ratings to filter out workers.” Two years ago, we had reported on how workers with Urban Company are facing arbitrary blocking of IDs and penalties based on unrealistic performance criteria.
Workers have demanded transparency in the algorithmic data so that they can know how their pay, earnings, working hours, task allocation and deactivation are determined. “Workers and their unions are not asking for customer data but data about themselves that companies are collecting, which is the basis of task allocation and, by extension, forms in which algorithmic control is exercised,” says Eesha.
She points to another route by which these companies evade accountability: “Across states where stakeholder consultations are being held for enacting a law for platform workers, aggregator companies are refusing to provide any form of data to the government on the number of workers registered with their platforms or data related to workers’ earnings.” They do this, she adds, by creating the “legal fiction” that the workers are independent, and instead advocate for self-registration, like in the e-shram system, where the onus is on the workers, unions, and associations to register and create awareness.
This happens against the backdrop of India’s inadequate and poorly-implemented labour laws that exclude the almost 8 million workers in the burgeoning gig economy. In the contracts that workers are made to sign, they are not termed as ‘workers’, which would have allowed them to seek recourse under law but as ‘driver partners’, ‘delivery partners’, or ‘partners’. For instance, Blusmart drivers will not be given the retrenchment compensation mandated under the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947 because they are not considered workers.
As we reported earlier, Urban Company workers, objecting to the abrupt termination of their IDs, did not get the support they sought from their respective labour departments because they are classified as ‘partners’, not workers.
Eesha thinks the government has a responsibility to hold BluSmart accountable and to ensure that compensation is provided to the workers. “[But] There are no existing laws governing these situations, my sense is the fight will be long drawn and there may not be an immediate resolution,” she says.
Policies That Go Beyond Social Security
Sadhana makes a case for delinking of labour rights from employment status so that workers are not deprived of them on the basis of the nature of their work. Blusmart workers could not invoke labour rights because “the entire economy, and not just the ride-hailing sector is becoming so individualised”, she says.
The first policy to define gig workers and platform workers was the Code on Social Security 2020. It provides for the framing of social security measures for workers, including insurance and disability cover, health and maternity benefits and old age protection. It also has provisions for setting up a fund to finance the scheme.
Several states, like Rajasthan, Karnataka, Jharkhand and more recently, Telangana, are making efforts to bring in legislation. The Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Bill was passed in September 2023, but the rules are yet to be framed.
“The Code on Social Security or the Rajasthan Act has nothing to say on the nature of employment or conditions of employment; therefore, they are limited in their scope to address questions of precarious work, and have a primary focus on social security,” says Eesha, adding that other draft bills have provisions against arbitrary dismissal, for minimum income security, and data and algorithmic transparency.
An outsized focus on social security takes away focus from other fundamental problems designed into platforms, like arbitrary de-platforming, unpredictability of income, and inability to challenge algorithmic surveillance and algorithmically-mediated decisions. “There are these broader issues of precarity that no legislation is addressing because gig workers are stuck in a stalemate of whether they are independent contractors, or employees, or a category unto themselves,” Soujanya says.
As we said earlier, the government has announced that it will start Sahkar Taxi, a co-operative based service. The Telangana Gig and Platform Workers’ Union has welcomed this in a press statement. Experts back this step, particularly because cooperatives by design are democratic, enabling workers to have a say and elect representatives. But there is little information on how Sahkar will be structured and implemented and its success, says Eesha, will depend on how it will withstand the pressure from powerful competitors.
BehanBox reached out to the Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Cooperation with questions about what it has done to support workers and if the proposed Sahkar Taxi will absorb the retrenched BluSmart drivers. This story will be updated with their response.
A key demand of BluSmart drivers was to be integrated into the government’s Sahkar Taxi initiative. “The government should take control of matters so that us drivers, including women, can earn livelihoods, continue driving and follow our dreams,” says Ragini.
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