Govt Partners With Zomato To Take Street Food Vendors Online

As a part of Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme, the Ministry of Urban Housing Affairs (MoHUA) entered into MoU with Zomato to onboard street food vendors on its food-tech platform, an official release said on Thursday (4 February).

According to the release, this initiative will give street food vendors online access to thousands of consumers and will also help them grow their businesses.

The release said that the Covid-19 pandemic has restricted consumers from stepping out and forced them to follow physical distancing norms. In the given scenario it is important to connect Street Food Vendors with technology enabled platforms to help them grow their business, thus helping them gain financially.

Under the MoU, initially MoHUA and Zomato will run a pilot program by on-boarding 300 vendors across six cities namely – Bhopal, Ludhiana, Nagpur, Patna, Raipur, Vadodara.

The street vendors will be helped with PAN and fssai registration, training on technology/ partner app usage, menu digitization and pricing, hygiene and packaging best practices. Upon the successful completion of the pilot, MoHUA and Zomato plan to expand this initiative across the country in phases.

The Housing Affairs Ministry had earlier entered into an MoU with Swiggy on 5 October 2020 and has now joined hands with Zomato to empower street food vendors with digital technology and facilitate greater income earning opportunities by being present on a popular food-tech platforms.

MoHUA has coordinated with the key stakeholders including Municipal Corporations, FSSAI, Zomato and GST officials to ensure that street food vendors are facilitated in completing the necessary prerequisites for this initiative, the release said.