Deepinder Goyal announces Rs 2,500 charge for Blinkit non-emergency ambulance services

Blinkit Ambulance will charge Rs 2,500 for non-emergency transfers, while emergency services will remain free, Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal said. The move aims to discourage routine hospital visits from using fully equipped ambulances meant for emergencies

New Delhi: Blinkit Ambulance will charge Rs 2,500 for each non-emergency case, Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal said on Thursday, highlighting a growing share of bookings for routine medical check-ups rather than emergency cases.

Goyal clarified that emergency transfers would continue to be free, while non-emergency transfers would attract a charge of Rs 2,500 after the trip, broadly in line with the rates charged by private ambulance services.

“In the last two years, we have served approximately 20,000 emergency cases (about 42,000 cases in total). We haven’t charged a single rupee for any of them. And we want to keep it that way. With everything free, a growing share of bookings are for routine check-ups, hospital visits and hospital-to-home transfers, trips that an Uber or private transport could have handled just as easily.

“Every such booking keeps a fully equipped emergency ambulance with paramedics off the road when someone’s life may depend on it,” he said in a post on X.

The money collected from non-emergency transfers will go to the Eternal Foundation, which operates these ambulances and will help the company scale up the service further, Goyal said.

Goyal is the Vice-Chairman of Eternal, the parent company of Zomato and Blinkit.

“We hope that this charge will dramatically reduce the use of our ambulances for non-emergency cases. Ten-minute ambulances have saved and can save thousands of lives, and we need to keep them available for emergencies that need them the most,” Goyal said in the post.