Street vendors were amongst the first to face the economic wrath of the COVID-19-induced lockdown. With a severe dip in daily income, street vendors lost business and livelihood sources – making it difficult for them to meet ends. Pandemic-induced lockdowns further led to stall closures and a draught in customer inflow, aided by the wariness of street food amidst customers, even as they began stepping out.

To help the street vendors, we collaborated with the Government of India (GoI) in February 2021 (during the first COVID-19 wave) to help revive the street vendors’ business by providing them online access to a wider customer base. GoI had launched a specialised scheme called the Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi Scheme or PM SVANidhi Scheme. Funded by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), the initiative was aimed to facilitate working capital loans, incentivise regular repayments and increase digital transactions for street vendors. 

Zomato saw this collaboration as an opportunity to empower and digitise the vendors and create economic independence for them. We signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) to onboard street vendors across multiple cities on Zomato’s technology platforms. It was a bid to improve their livelihoods and diminish the impact of the pandemic on their businesses. 

A digital leap

We onboarded ~965 street vendors in FY22 on the Zomato platform, from across India, including Nagpur, Bhopal, Ludhiana, Jabalpur, and Vadodara. 

Roop Singh is one such street vendor and the name behind the ‘Indori Famous Utsav Poha’ stall in Bhopal. He has been running his stall for 12 years and cultivated massive popularity for his poha. Since being onboarded on the Zomato platform, he has earned close to INR 6,000 daily.

In another city (Nagpur), for nearly ten years now, Kalpesh has been running his stall – Ashirwad Snacks Zone, selling various snacks. His name is close to local celebrity, with his sandwiches drawing daily crowds. Kalpesh’s dream to scale further came to a staggering halt during the COVID-induced lockdown of 2020. Zomato reached out to him to help him counter the impact of the pandemic. Leveraging our tech platform and its vast footprint, Kalpesh improved his sales substantially (close to a 40% growth). His sandwiches are now being delivered across the city. And soon, he became one of the top-rated street vendors in the city. Kalpesh is dreaming again, hoping to open a franchise one day to sell his sandwiches country-wide.

Zomato is committed to onboarding street vendors by providing them access to a large customer base, helping them with FSSAI licensing applications and extending learning resources. We also continue to build their capacity on how to utilise the technology platform for their benefit, including suggestions on designing and structuring the menu to place bestsellers at the very top and marking them for increased customer attention.

We believe digitising India needs a collective push. As we celebrate Digital India Week 2022, we commend all efforts to uplift and empower street vendors. Zomato is grateful to have played a supporting role in the digital journeys of their businesses. 

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