Blinkit 10-minute ambulance service: Goyal advises firm to follow law of land

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday said quick-commerce companies like Blinkit, which is launching a 10-minute ambulance service, must make sure that they meet the law of the land.

Blinkit on Thursday launched a 10-minute ambulance service in select areas of Gurugram as a pilot project.

Users will be able to see the option to call for an ambulance on the Blinkit app, according to a company statement.

"As regards Blinkit doing ambulance services or medicines being delivered, my only submission would be that they have to make sure that they meet the law of the land and whatever the legal requirements should be properly taken care of. No laws of the land should be broken," Goyal told reporters when asked about the company's decision.

Asked about issues raised by small retailers about quick-commerce or ecommerce firms, he said the government is monitoring that and the CCI (Competition Commission of India) has already taken actions in some cases and wherever they found anti-competitive practices.

"As far as I know, investigative actions have also been taken on some companies, who have violated laws and misused them," he said.

Replying to a question about a sharp dip in valuations of certain unicorn startups, Goyal said there are very few such cases.

"We have been monitoring, but we did not find too many cases," he said.

He added that market forces determine the valuations and the government does not interfere in that.

"We neither interfered when Zepto becomes a unicorn in less than three years nor did we interfere if somebody's value fell...could be for mismanagement or lack of financial prudence," he said.

However, the minister added that in case of financial mismanagement or managerial incompetence, "we picked up those cases and asked the National Startup Advisory Council to study what has gone wrong and come up with some guidelines for auditors, or guidelines by which all the startups can be encouraged to be aware of such practices and investors to keep their eyes open and the council has done a good job on that".

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The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) had constituted the council in January 2020 to advise the government on measures needed to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation and start-ups in the country.

When asked about startups shifting bases in India, he said it is a welcome sign and also "very" satisfying that more and more startups want to come back home and register in India and possibly list in India.

It reflects on the government's decisive leadership, pro-active policies and stability.

It all has helped in making India an attractive destination, he said adding the stock market in India is one of the best performing in the world, having consistently given positive returns.

He invited feedback if any steps are required to make the journey of startups back home easier.

He informed that Startup India had several funds and budget provisions had already been made earlier and provided to SIDBI.

"So we do not need annual allocation. SIDBI is the operating agency and they keep disbursing the fund. SIDBI has also now started getting back money...Rs 1,600 crore started coming back into the SIDBIs corpus," he said.

He added that India can host more data centres because it has an ideal ecosystem to support those centres in the country.

"India is a choice of the world today because of government policies...huge investments have either come in or are on the way to come in...Everybody talks to invest in billions and not in millions," he said.