Good news for foodies! Now get street food delivered to your house

No need to step out of your house if you are craving for street food, as you can now order your favourite street food online and enjoy it!

One of India's largest online food delivery platform Swiggy, on Monday, partnered with MoHUA to deliver street food to its customers.

Under the Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AtmaNibhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on Monday signed an MOU with Swiggy, the food ordering and delivery platform, to provide online access to street vendors to supply food to its consumers.

"To begin with, Ministry and Swiggy will run a pilot program by on-boarding 250 vendors across five cities namely – Ahmadabad, Chennai, Delhi, Indore, and Varanasi," said a Ministry in a statement

"The street vendors will be helped with PAN and FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) 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 Swiggy plan to expand this initiative across the country in phases," said the statement.

This is yet another move by Ministry to empower street vendors with digital technology and facilitate greater income-earning opportunities by being present on a popular e-commerce platform like Swiggy, the Ministry said.

In a first of its kind initiative, Ministry has coordinated with the key stakeholders including Municipal Corporations, FSSAI, Swiggy and GST officials to ensure that necessary prerequisites are completed for this initiative, said the statement.

The MoU was exchanged by Joint Secretary Sanjay Kumar and Chief Financial Officer, Swiggy Rahul Bothra, through a webinar.

​During the ceremony, Druga Shankar Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, said that providing an online food delivery platform is an innovative idea launched under the PM SVANidhi Scheme.

The Scheme was implemented on June 01, 2020, for providing affordable working capital loan to street vendors to resume their livelihoods that have been adversely affected due to Covid-19 lockdown.

This scheme targets to benefit over 50 lakh Street Vendors who had been vending on or before 24 March 2020, in urban areas including those from surrounding peri-urban/ rural areas. Under the Scheme, the vendors can avail of a working capital loan of up to Rs. 10,000, which is repayable in monthly installments in the tenure of one year.

​As on October 4, 2020, over 20 lakh loan applications have been received under the PM SVANidhi Scheme. Out of these over 7.5 lakh loans have been sanctioned and over 2.4 lakh loans disbursed.