For the better part of the last year, Arunkumar Mishra has been a delivery service personnel with the food delivery company Zomato. When asked if he had heard about his company’s plans to introduce a separate fleet of riders for orders from ‘pure vegetarian’ restaurants, he said he had heard about it but nothing has been communicated to him so far. “It will be a loss for us if this happens. Most people order non-vegetarian food, so those asked to pick up orders only from vegetarian restaurants will not make as much as others,” he said.

Mishra is a vegetarian, as is everyone else in his family. He recalled how when he had first started delivery work, the idea of carrying meat in his hands made him uncomfortable. “That is not how I think anymore. Once I overcame that fear, it did not matter what I was carrying in my hand. I’m still a vegetarian, but I have no problem now if someone else is eating non-veg near me; that is not how it was before,” he said.