Swiggy on Thursday announced the expansion of its Street Food Vendors programme to 125 cities and 36,000 vendors under the Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme. This follows a successful pilot that Swiggy initiated with the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Chennai, Delhi and Indore, through which the platform has already onboarded over 300 street vendors.

Swiggy has created a special destination on the app where consumers can discover their favourite street-food vendors. At the time of onboarding, all vendors are registered with the FSSAI. Swiggy then facilitates a Food Safety Training and Certification in association with the FSSAI and empanelled partners.

The SVANidhi Scheme has received loan applications from 1.47 lakh street-food vendors so far. From these, in the first phase alone, Swiggy will onboard 36,000 vendors to whom the loan has been disbursed in 125 cities — potentially making this initiative the largest of its kind not just in India, but globally.

“Even as we go through more stages of unlocking, there has been a long-term change in consumer behaviour regarding continued social distancing and heightened demand for online services like food delivery. As a platform committed to bringing the widest choice of food to the doorsteps of consumers safely and hygienically, we’re delighted to bring them their favourite street food which they have been missing for many months now,” said Vivek Sunder, COO, Swiggy.

“More importantly, street vendors are integral to the food culture in India and we thank the MoHUA 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,” he added.

Three-stage training

Swiggy has created a dedicated team to continuously explore and identify iconic, popular and proven-safe street vendors on the platform. As a practice, all vendors under the PMSVANidhi Scheme must undergo a three-stage training programme before being onboarded. After the training and registration, all vendors are required to do a self-audit and demonstrate the standards they abide by. These standards are modelled on the lines of the FSSAI’s guidelines to ensure that essential hygienic practices are observed.

Understanding that it is equally important to train the vendors on digital skills such as handling the partner app, menu digitisation and pricing, Swiggy conducts virtual one-on-one training and takes them through the process of accepting, preparing, and fulfilling orders on the platform without compromising on consumer experience.

“I have been running my Chaat Bhandar for over six years now and have been known in the neighbourhood of Sundarpur. As Covid restrictions came into effect, all customers, including those who regularly came to my stall stopped, putting a lot of stress on me. I’m grateful for this new scheme by the government and this initiative by Swiggy that is helping vendors like me use mobile technology for the first time to reach customers” said Rajesh Gupta, Shree Ram Chaat Bhandar, Varanasi.

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