Blinkit Ambulance will now charge ₹2,500 for non-emergency trips
Emergency rides stay free. Routine trips like check-ups and hospital-to-home transfers will now be paid.
- ₹2,500 per non-emergency trip
- ~42,000 trips in two years
- ~20,000 emergency trips, all free
What happened
Blinkit, the quick-commerce app owned by Eternal (formerly Zomato), runs its own ambulance service in a few cities. Until now, every ride was free.
On Thursday, Deepinder Goyal, Eternal's vice-chairman, announced that non-emergency trips will now cost ₹2,500 each. That covers things like routine check-ups, regular hospital visits and hospital-to-home transfers. The amount is collected after the trip and is roughly what private ambulances charge.
Emergency cases remain completely free.
Why they did it
According to Goyal, the service has done about 42,000 trips in two years, around 20,000 of them emergencies — and not one has been charged.
The problem: because rides were free, more and more people booked them for routine trips. Every routine booking takes an ambulance away from someone who might be having a heart attack or a stroke. The fee is meant to discourage that, so ambulances stay available for real emergencies.
The money collected goes to the Eternal Foundation, which runs the ambulances, to help expand the service.
Why it matters
It's a rare case of a startup adding a price to make a free service work better, not to make money. Many people on social media backed the move, saying a free service only works if people don't misuse it.
