Blinkit ambulance to charge Rs 2,500 for some services, Deepinder Goyal announces

Blinkit Ambulance will now charge Rs 2,500 for non-emergency bookings, Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal has announced. The charge will apply to bookings made for non-emergency journeys, such as routine hospital visits and hospital-to-home transfers. Emergency ambulance services, however, will continue to be available free of charge.Goyal says the move is aimed at discouraging people from using fully equipped emergency ambulances for routine hospital visits, so that they remain available for patients who need urgent medical attention.In a post on X, Goyal said: “I started Zomato with a spirit of service. Blinkit Ambulance is what that spirit of service looks like today.” He added that the company wants to continue offering emergency ambulance services free of charge.I started Zomato with a spirit of service. Blinkit Ambulance is what that spirit of service looks like today. In the last 2 years, we have served ~20,000 emergency cases (~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 checkups, 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. So we are making a change from now onwards: Emergency transfers – free, as always. Non-emergency transfers – 2,500, charged after the trip. Broadly in line with what private ambulances charge. This money goes to Eternal Foundation, which runs these ambulances and will help us scale them even further. We hope that this charge will dramatically drop the usage of our Ambulances for non-emergency cases. 10-minute ambulances have saved and can save thousands of lives, and we need to keep them available for emergencies that need them the most. One more thing. Scaling high quality ambulances is hard. The biggest bottleneck is trained, empathic paramedics. Our training academy is scaling as fast as we can without compromising on quality, and @albinder and team are committed to bringing Blinkit Ambulance to all major cities in India in the next 2-4 years. Stay well, and I pray you don't need us. @sparsh_sehgal – I wish your grandma a speedy recovery, and I am so glad we were able to be there on time.— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) November 5, 2026Why is Blinkit charging for ambulance services?Goyal reveals that Blinkit's free ambulance service has handled around 42,000 cases so far, including nearly 20,000 emergencies in the last two years. However, the company has noticed a rise in bookings for routine check-ups, hospital visits and transfers from hospitals to patients' homes. These are journeys that people could otherwise make using an Uber or private transport. Blinkit's ambulances are fully equipped emergency vehicles staffed by trained paramedics. Using them for routine journeys means they are unavailable to respond to patients who may need urgent medical attention.“Every such booking keeps a fully equipped emergency ambulance with paramedics off the road when someone's life may depend on it,” Goyal said. To discourage such bookings and keep ambulances available for emergencies, Blinkit has now decided to charge a Rs 2,500 fee for non-emergency transfers. Emergency transfers will continue to be free. Goyal said the charge is broadly in line with what private ambulance operators charge.The money collected will go to the Eternal Foundation, which operates Blinkit Ambulance, and will be used to expand the service.Goyal hopes the fee will reduce non-emergency bookings and keep more ambulances available for critical cases. “10-minute ambulances have saved and can save thousands of lives, and we need to keep them available for emergencies that need them the most,” he said.Meanwhile, Blinkit plans to expand its ambulance service to all major Indian cities over the next two to four years. Goyal said Albinder and his team are working towards making that happen.- Ends