When Even Cargo started operations in 2016, women were largely absent from India’s logistics sector – critical work in transportation and supply chain management. So when it started to train women from resource-poor communities in Delhi and gave them access to opportunities in the sector, they changed the game for e-commerce deliveries.

Now, ten years later, they’re building on their progress with an effort to reimagine the future of inclusion in workplaces. This includes identifying gaps in retention – a common problem across industries and markets – and assessing what newer industries are doing to establish equal frameworks from day one.

In a conversation with the DEI Lab, Yogesh Kumar, founder and CEO of Even Cargo, charted his journey of thinking through inclusion, what lessons he thinks their experiences might hold for corporate India at large, and why he decided that dignity is a fundamental principle of their approach. 

(Editor’s Note: This conversation took place in late 2025. It has been edited for clarity.)

DEI Lab: In May 2016, you started out with the idea of training women to work on logistics and ferry packages. At that time, what informed your decision?

Yogesh: The first question was, how do you make Delhi a safer place for women?

I come from Delhi and, at that time, people had a perception that the city is unsafe for women. So, I think the beginning of the idea, that later went on to become Even Cargo, was a question of women’s safety in Delhi.

Personally, I felt the tipping point for wanting to do something on this in 2012. At that time, I was working as an engineer, and I had zero understanding of the development sector. Then, I got to know about Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and I applied for the social entrepreneurship course there. One year into my Masters’ program, in 2013, I was supposed to pilot test my own idea. That’s when I came back to Delhi and did gender sensitisation work; engaging Delhi Police over a period of nine months. After my degree, using my insights from the pilot project, I started a cab service for women, by women. We trained six women. But that project failed.

Then, in 2016, a delivery person came over for a personal errand. And I looked at him and thought, “Why can’t women get into this profession?”

At the beginning, our major objective was for women to have equal access to public spaces. That was the core objective, because we thought that more women in the public space would be a way to build a perception of safety.

Secondly, we wanted to challenge gender norms on ground. Having studied in a social science institute, I realised that theoretical ideas have their value. But unless these ideas are taken to the people, they won't make much of a difference. I wanted to challenge norms, translate them into action and bring them to street vendors, or perhaps, the bus conductors. How would their perceptions of gender roles change when they see a woman delivery person in action?

DEI Lab: What was the ecosystem of employing women in blue-collar jobs like when you started out? What changes have you observed now?

Yogesh: In the industry that we operated in, there were no women. So, I was assured that we were the first organisation to introduce women in e-commerce logistics. Initially, we began operations according to the hub-and-spoke model, and we were doing 15 pin codes in South Delhi. We would get material from the warehouse of our partner companies and bring it to our office. The next day, our women would come in, and they would take their respective parcel, deliver, and get money.

Now, I see many more women in the sector. I mean, when we started, most people wouldn’t even think that a woman could work in delivery services. For example, one of the major e-commerce companies we were working with, didn’t even have a washroom for women! It took them three months to start operations because they wanted to build a washroom first. Now, you see organisations are a lot more welcoming. 

But I don't see the scale in terms of numbers, because I feel there's still a long way to go. We need to address systemic barriers to solve for this, and we are attempting to do so now. As far as the perception of women in professions like delivery is concerned, though, I do see a shift.

DEI Lab: When it comes to training women and providing them with employment, what is a hurdle that keeps coming up? What are the lessons that organisations who are looking to follow a similar model of training young women with specialist skills can learn from?

Yogesh: One of our major concerns when we began was the safety of our women employees. Initially, we thought that we would only deliver during daytime and we would only deliver to women. So, we worked with women-focused organisations. It was also quite difficult to onboard women as workers — and there, the challenge persists even now. When we go and mobilise women to join us, we see hesitation, mental barriers, or male members of the family making decisions for the women. One interesting pattern we have observed is that, as crime against women goes up in Delhi, our conversion goes down. For example, recently some incidents have taken place which violate women’s safety.

As a result, we have seen, in our work, at least six instances where somebody has directly cited these incidents – saying that given how our society is for women, I wouldn’t want to send my daughter to work in the city. That’s the kind of direct correlation. 

The other big bottleneck was that women didn’t think that they could deliver, or that this job is suitable for them. Another crucial hurdle is, obviously nobody wakes up in the morning and aspires to be a delivery girl. We understand that this job, at Even Cargo, is a stepping stone. Perhaps for most of these women, this is their first job, and then they have better opportunities later.

DEI Lab: How has Even Cargo dealt with the issue of increasing women’s access to public spaces, and as an extension, their safety while working? Are you partnering with organisations who are tackling this?

Yogesh: We have not directly advocated for the safety of women in public spaces, because we are not an advocacy organisation. However, our work has been considered a research case study in this area, and we do engage with the government and other international bodies on this. Unfortunately, this question requires systemic change which won’t happen at an organisational level. Even Cargo has had multiple rounds of conversation with the Ministry of Labour where we perhaps were the tiniest, smallest organisation at the roundtable. Many of the recommendations we gave to the Ministry were incorporated. As and when we get the opportunity to do so, we share our experiences. But we have not adapted or subscribed to a particular form of advocacy work that could help bring more women into public spaces.

DEI Lab: Even Cargo works extensively with their women employees on retention — addressing issues of harassment or mistreatment, if any. In your experience, what’s the most crucial aspect of employment for women that influences their choice to remain at a job?

Yogesh: We have a retention vertical and we have literature around it, which is not theoretical but draws on our experiences of hiring women; what works and doesn’t work. This includes how to engage with the delivery associate; and ways in which we can speak to her family or connect her with various government schemes, among other things. 

The industry that we operate in has over 70% attrition rate in the gig economy. Every time a new organisation comes, they pump in money, and we end up at risk of losing our workforce because they will operate at a level which we won't be able to. Suppose there's an organisation which employs 100,000 males and they make X profits. Even if they employ 100 women with a Y percent of losses, they are still doing better in comparison to us, who have limited means to do our work.

So, from that perspective I think we have been able to document our learnings, and we will be publishing them soon. Anyone can learn from our experience and scale it up. Because often, it's not the knowledge, but the intent that is missing. People have known what needs to be done — I mean, what we are doing is nothing new — but there are few who go on the ground and make it happen. I say this quite often; that if anybody wants to do what we’re doing, I'm happy to share how it's done.

DEI Lab: Your vision focuses on creating equal livelihood opportunities for women. What was the thinking that led to this? Are there examples of success stories in this regard that you can share with us?

Yogesh: I think we started with inclusion; that was our focal point. But over a period of time, we realised that we cannot think or talk about inclusion, if livelihood is not there. You need food on your plate to think or discuss about any of those things. So, livelihood became our major focus. Whatever we say or engage in, is to make sure that women get money in their hands. That gives the kind of agency to women, which in our opinion, is very different from just thinking and believing. She’s equal when she has financial independence and the kind of authority that she gets is very different.

We have seen numerous examples. We did a story about a person called Sita. She has earned over ₹50,000 per month consecutively for eight to nine months — that too, in non-peak season. Highlighting these kinds of stories acts as a major incentive for the women we work with, and perhaps, helps them understand the work better. We show these videos during our mobilisation campaign to let women know that this is what the work looks like.

We are also doing one story with the women who we have employed in Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh. Through this video, the idea is, that if women can be employed in Chhindwara – not in Indore or Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, but in a small town – then the potential is immense. We also trained fifty women in Durg in Chattisgarh.

So, the question is, how do you take this opportunity of employment to smaller towns as well? Equal livelihood opportunities for women are important for us. And dignity is an important part of it.

DEI Lab: Indian businesses are beginning to have conversations about supplier chain diversity, equity, and fair practices in the broader systems of business that they participate in. What are some things you'd like such businesses – for example, Godrej – to keep in mind?

Yogesh: One — we did a diagnostic study. If you tell us that this is a factory where you want more women, then we tell you that these are our recommendations, and this is how you should implement them. We will also help you in finding the right talent. We are in the initial stages of creating this framework, so I’m not going to name the organisation in question, but what we’re doing with them is this. Their HR has created a requirement for the next two years — that these many people will be required for these job roles. Now, we’re taking a target. Say, we took a target of 10% — that out of the 2000 people that you want, 200 should be women. We are creating a job profile for that. We are preparing the KPIs, for example. So, we are helping them prepare for inclusion in a way that’s not haphazard.  

Two — you must give it time. If you’re preparing for inclusion, you need to make sure that you aren’t in a hurry to get results. I'm not saying you should compromise on your financials or your product quality. But inclusion happens over time. Like for us, at Even Cargo, the first month for any woman is not the best month. She doesn't perform as well as her peers in the first month. It’s from the third month onwards that her productivity improves, and she well compensates for the time she has taken to learn. So, the organisation is not losing anything. But the fear in our head, which is largely gender bias, is that perhaps the women we hire will not be able to perform as well. And when you see things aren’t happening, it gets validated.

Three — which I am concerned about is, are we preparing them for a career growth trajectory or are we just putting the women to work for the sake of it? At Even Cargo, we emphasise on resuming education. We also emphasise on upskilling. These are major components, because she needs to grow in life. It shouldn't be a job where she will stay at the same position for ten years.

DEI Lab: It’s been ten years since Even Cargo. What in your perspective will the next, say perhaps ten years of inclusion, look like? What is the one big thing that you're really excited about?

Yogesh: I think the biggest bottleneck that we have seen is that not enough women are mobile. To give you some numbers, by 2030, India will employ 25 million people in the gig economy, and this is a conservative estimate by NITI Aayog. Now, take 10% of that number, which is 2.5 million. If we take 1% of that, that’s 250,000 women who need to be made mobile to take up gig economy job roles in the next, say, four years. That means you need to train over six to seven thousand women per month on mobility. Nobody's doing this in India. We are not even preparing for 1% inclusion for a 2030 gig economy.

Now, we’re in the process of setting up women mobility centers. The idea is, in the next five years, we should have 100 mobility centers in India where women get trained on mobility – two-wheelers and three-wheelers. If they want to get employed, we will facilitate that. Or, if they just want to learn mobility and have access to public spaces for better education, or employment, so be it. But the idea is this – how do you make mobility a part of skill development?

The other idea is to look at newer industries to bring tangible change in their workforce. Logistics has been there for decades. Retail, construction, all these have been in existence for a while. But industries which are just coming up, say green energy, solar, or EV, they can adapt to inclusion faster and better. Why not do that? So, we’re now helping an organisation to train women in EV value chain from sales to service from the get-go. These are the things which we are really excited about.