New Delhi, Nov 28 (IANS): Online home services marketplace Urban Company on Monday said it has awarded stocks worth Rs 5.2 crore to 497 service partners under the Partner Stock Option Plan (PSOP) programme.

Of the total recipients, about 30 per cent were female service partners from the beauty and wellness vertical. Bengaluru had the highest number of partner shareholders with 26 per cent, followed by Delhi-NCR with 22 per cent, the company said in a statement.

The company in March announced the PSOP programme for its service providers, where it will award stocks worth Rs 150 crore at near zero cost to thousands of service partners over the next 5-7 years.

"This is just the start and we are hopeful that in the coming years, the numbers will rise to thousands," said Abhiraj Bhal, co-founder and CEO, Urban Company.

The company has already received board approval for the first tranche of Rs 75 crore worth of stocks, to be disbursed over the next few years.

Seven partners, who were part of the first cohort of stock recipients in March, received it again for the second time, due to their consistent high performance, it informed.

Urban Company said it has established a fair process for awarding these shares and the entire process is rule-based and transparent, with an advisory panel providing complete guidance.

According to the recently released 'H1 2022 UC Earnings Index', the top 20 per cent UC partners earned an average of about Rs 38,000 per month.

All Urban Company partners have health insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh, with up to 12 free medical consultations per year for self.

The best-performing partners (nearly 5,000 service partners) also have a family health insurance cover worth Rs 2 lakh.