At Your Service

Say you want a kg of potatoes and some sundry tomatoes at 3 am. All you need to do is text your request to a given mobile number.

This is one offer the organised retail industry will find tough to match. The National Association of Street Vendors of India (Nasvi) is planning to introduce 24/7 home delivery services from April onwards. Say you want a kg of potatoes and some sundry tomatoes at 3 am. All you need to do is text your request to a given mobile number.

The Nasvi system will locate the suppliers available and you’ll get a reply, informing you of the nearest vendors. You can even quality check the suppliers, as every vendor on the Nasvi database is consumer rated. Choice made, you give the vendor a call and the order will be at your doorstep.

Nasvi coordinator Arbind Singh says, “We are in the final stages of putting together the database of vendors and service providers. By end-April, we should be able to start the service. We’ll begin with East Delhi and gradually expand to other parts of the country.”

And it’s not just vendors, you can call in mechanics, drivers, dhobis, even painters. “We had worried that vendors might oppose the idea, but they were keen. The vendors think it’ll bring in better business. Plus, every service provider on our database is accredited,” says Singh. Log on to nasvinet.org for more details.

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Sohini Chattopadhyay