Quick commerce companies like Blinkit, that are getting into areas such as 10-minute ambulance services, have to make sure they meet the law of the land, Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said.

“As regards Blinkit doing ambulance services or medicines being delivered, my only submission would be that they have to make sure that they meet the law of the land and whatever the legal requirements should be properly taken care of. No laws of the land should be broken,” Goyal said at a media briefing on Friday in response to a question on the company’s decision.

On Thursday, Blinkit launched a 10-minute ambulance service in Gurugram, with plans to expand it to other cities in the next two years,

Responding to questions on allegations made by small retailers about anti-competitive practices followed by quick-commerce and e-commerce companies, the Minister said that it was being monitored by the Competition Commission of India. “As far as I know, investigative actions have also been taken on some companies, who have violated laws and misused them,” he said.

Sharp dip

On a sharp dip in valuations of some unicorn start-ups, the Minister said that there were very few such cases and valuations were determined by market forces. “We neither interfered when Zepto becomes a unicorn in less than three years nor did we interfere if somebody’s value fell,” he said. This could be due to financial mismanagement or lack of financial prudence, he said.

To learn from the mistakes, the government picked up cases of financial mismanagement or managerial incompetence, and asked the National Startup Advisory Council to study what has gone wrong, Goyal said. The council was asked to come up with some guidelines for auditors, or guidelines by which all the start-ups can be encouraged to be aware of such practices and investors to keep their eyes open and the council has done a good job on that, he said.

The NSAC was constituted to advise the government on measures required to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation and start-ups in the country resulting in sustainable economic growth and large-scale employment opportunities.