Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and Swiggy will begin by running a pilot program by on-boarding 250 vendors from five cities – Ahmedabad, Chennai, Delhi, Indore, and Varanasi . Prime Minister Street Vendor’s Atma Nibhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme, MoHUA has entered into an MoU with Swiggy, the leading food ordering and delivery platform in India, to onboard street food vendors on its e-commerce platform, giving them online access to thousands of consumers and help these vendors grow their businesses. According to the MoHUA, this initiative has been launched in these five cities on a pilot basis by on-boarding 250 street food vendors and later, it will be rolled out in other parts of the country.
Under the Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AtmaNibhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme, the move will give street vendors online access to thousands of consumers and help them grow their businesses, a ministry official said.
The MoHUA has coordinated with the key stakeholders, including municipal corporations, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), Swiggy and GST officials, to ensure that necessary prerequisites are completed for this initiative, the official said.
An MoU was exchanged by Joint Secretary Sanjay Kumar and Swiggy chief financial officer Rahul Bothra through a webinar in the presence of Union Housing and Urban Affairs (HUA) Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra.
During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, when physical distancing is key to check its spread, this novel initiative aims to radically transform the business of street vendors across cities by facilitating them to receive orders and serve customers using online mode of business, it stated.