Dec 11, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent nationwide lockdown had left the street vendors in despair. Identifying the need to support the street vendors, PM Modi’s government had launched the PM SVANidhi scheme.
The food delivery giant – Swiggy is cashing on PM SVANidhi, and has gone on to support street vendors so that they can revive the business hit by coronavirus.
Vivek Sunder, COO, Swiggy stated that, the street vendors are integral to the food culture in India and we thank the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for giving Swiggy the opportunity to do our bit to help them adapt to the ‘new normal’ and embrace and thrive in the digital economy.
Swiggy has partnered with the government to bring over 36,000 street food vendors to its online platform. The company said that it will onboard street food vendors from over 125 cities in Phase 1.
The food delivery company will list street vendors from Tier-2 & Tier-3 cities such as Indore, Varanasi, Gwalior, Vadodara, Visakhapatnam, Udaipur, Lucknow, and Bhilai are famous for their street food. Through a pilot project in the cities of Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Chennai, Delhi, and Indore, Swiggy has already onboard over 300 street vendors on its platform.
Swiggy has created a separate space on the app where consumers can find their preferred street food vendors. It has assured to facilitate food safety training and certification in partnership with FSSAI and their impaneled partners.
The SVANidhi Scheme has received around 1.47 lakh loan applications from street food vendors so far, out of these, Swiggy will onboard 36,000 vendors to whom the loan has been disbursed in 125 cities. The company claims that the drive will be the largest of its kind globally.
It is for the first time that the government had launched a scheme for the street vendors. The scheme provided an instant loan of up to Rs. 10,000 to street vendors, which was aimed at supporting them to resume their businesses as the economy opened.