Instant home service apps: Convenience, at whose cost?

In between bookings, some women wait on the streets without toilets or resting spaces.

In some parts of Bengaluru, it is now common to see women working with instant ‘house help’ apps waiting in the open for their next booking. They linger within walking distance of the apartment clusters they are assigned to — under trees, beside food stalls, near electricity boxes.

A dozen such women, working with Snabbit, Pronto and Urban Company, told Metrolife that while the city’s convenience economy pays better than tailoring, cooking, and other jobs they previously held, it offers little comfort in return. They have to put up with heat, dust, unwanted male attention and irritated looks from pedestrians for occupying the footpaths.

They said they would like designated rest areas with facilities such as toilets, drinking water, charging points, and seating.

Creepy men

It has been two months since Neha (name changed) joined one such platform. She previously worked in a food factory, cutting vegetables for Rs 16,000 a month. Now she earns almost Rs 10,000 more. But the 29-year-old from Assam doesn’t like “sitting on the road”.

“Men pass comments, give dirty looks. One man threw a chit with his phone number at me. I got scared and rushed to other women like me waiting on the pavement,” she said.

When we met, Neha was sitting on a stone bench opposite a gated society in Yeshwanthpur. The bench, covered with an asbestos sheet, has long been used by autorickshaw drivers plying the route. “When we started sitting here, these men would get angry with us,” said another woman who uses the same spot.

A short distance away on that footpath, two women in burqas sat with their backs against a BESCOM box. They had laid a mat, and propped flex boards on either side to create an enclosure for “some privacy”.

They said they had been trained for home support services in Nagawara, where workers were given a room to rest. So when they were assigned to this area a week ago, they were “shocked” to find no such facility. One of them added that the RMC Yard cluster nearby also offers a room, but she does not want to shift there because too many relatives frequent the area, and she does not want them to know about her work.

“We were homemakers. We took up this work because of financial problems. If our families find out that we sit on the footpath, they won’t let us work,” another woman said, pointing to the piles of discarded tea cups and flies buzzing around them. “There’s also a fear of drunk men,” she added.

While the apps offer flexible hours, most prefer to work eight-hour shifts, finishing by 7 or 8 pm. They said that bookings can range from just one to five or six a day. They lean against boundary walls or lie down on footpaths to nap — some even carry bedsheets with them. Most begin their day at 4.30 or 5 am, cooking meals and putting their homes in order before leaving for work.

Rs 10 for toilets

Access to toilets and drinking water is another concern. These women said that in the initial days, security guards at apartment complexes would not let them enter unless they had a booking. Some of them were allowed only after their manager submitted an application to the apartments to allow access.

However, Neha pays Rs 10 each time she uses a toilet in the metro station nearby. “It’s inconvenient during menstruation,” she said. While they don’t hesitate much to ask customers for a glass of water or to charge their phones, they swear they would never use the toilet. “Recently, I cleaned three bathrooms in a house, and the owner checked on me six times to make sure I hadn’t used their toilet,” rued a woman.

Citizens also have concerns. Gunjur resident R Prasad said, “Our footpaths are already congested. The platforms must find them a place.” Surabhi from Jalahalli said, “These women sit right outside my apartment, in the blind spot of vehicles exiting the building. I fear for their safety.”

These women say what softens these inconveniences somewhat is the company of fellow gig workers, regardless of the platform they are attached to. They chat over cups of tea, teach each other Kannada or Hindi to improve customer interactions, look out for one another when someone dozes off, and care for each other’s young children when they accept a booking. “But with the rains approaching, it can get difficult,” said one worker.

Are apps addressing these concerns?

In an email response, Pronto's team said the company has set up hubs equipped with rest areas, drinking water, toilets and charging points within walking distance of apartment clusters. On our query seeking the locations or photographs of these hubs, as well as the share of the workforce currently covered by them, they refused to share those details at this stage. However, they added that their Pros (gig workers) receive self-defence training, and can be reassigned to other clusters if they feel unsafe. "There is no penalty for raising a concern", they added.

Snabbit is piloting an initiative through the Snabbit Expert app that allows workers to identify nearby rest points. However, a spokesperson clarified that these are “not formal hubs”, but partnerships with tea stalls and other neighbourhood establishments where workers can rest and hydrate.

Home cleaning, cooking assistance and dishwashing are among the most in-demand services on these apps. The demand is largely driven by dual-income nuclear families, couples with young children, and elderly people living alone. Basically, those "who are stretched for time and willing to pay for reliability,” says the Pronto team.

The Snabbit spokesperson says the rapid adoption of these services in Bengaluru is driven by dense apartment complexes, a high number of working professionals, and an openness to app-based convenience services. At the same time, the platform is seeing strong interest from people seeking flexible earning opportunities, particularly women looking to join or re-enter the workforce.

The women also told Metrolife that they have limited flexibility to cancel bookings, as cancellations can affect their ratings. The Pronto team says that “for declines outside of safety reasons, the system is designed to allow a reasonable number of declines”, but added that declines cannot be completely open-ended because workers are paid a fixed component for each shift. Meanwhile, the Snabbit spokesperson described such concerns as “a misunderstanding around how marketplace reliability systems function”. They added that partners are not penalised for genuine emergencies or operational constraints.

Urban Company did not respond to our queries.