Swiggy to onboard 30,000 street food vendors in 125 cities under PM SVANidhi scheme

HIGHLIGHTS

• Online food aggregator Swiggy on Thursday announced the expansion of its “Street Food Vendors” programme to 125 cities under the Prime Minister Street Vendor’s Atmanibhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) scheme.

• “Good news! Swiggy will be delivering food from 36k Street Vendors in 125 cities all over India, thanks to the PM SVANidhi scheme. Swiggy is now delivering Street food in Delhi NCR, Indore, Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Chennai and coming soon to more cities!”  said the company in a statement today.

• The expansion comes after the successful launch of the pilot programme with 300 street vendors in Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Chennai, Delhi and Indore in partnership with the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA).

Good news! Swiggy will be delivering food from 36k Street Vendors in 125 cities all over India, thanks to the @pmsvanidhi scheme. Swiggy is now delivering Street food in Delhi NCR, Indore, Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Chennai and coming soon to more cities! pic.twitter.com/UPMojFcHId

— Swiggy (@swiggy_in) December 10, 2020

What is PM SVANidhi scheme?

Launched by MoHUA on June 1, 2020, PM SVANidhi scheme, which aims to cover more than 50 lakh street vendors across the country, is primarily a micro-credit facility aimed at economic upliftment of street vendors. It was launched with the objective of economic betterment of lakhs of street vendors and daily wage labourers who migrated from cities back to their villages during the nationwide lockdown.

The scheme intends to facilitate collateral-free working capital loans of up to Rs 10,000 of one-year tenure, to approximately 50 lakh street vendors, to help resume their businesses in the urban areas, including surrounding peri-urban/rural areas.

Swiggy first to partner MoHUA to utilise PM SVANidhi scheme

Swiggy said its customers can now find a dedicated section on its app to discover their favourite street food on the platform.

“By updating the app, customers in Ahmedabad, Chennai, Delhi, Indore and Varanasi can find ‘Street Vendor’ under the restaurant category. The app homepage also has banners that lead users directly to a range of street vendor listings,” it added.

Swiggy COO Vivek Sunder said the company was working to ensure doorstep delivery of people’s favourite street food. “Even as we go through more stages of unlock, there has been a long-term change in consumer behaviour regarding continued social distancing and heightened demand for online services, like food delivery…We’re delighted to bring them their favourite street food which they have been missing for many months now,” he said.