Street vendors are an essential part of the urban economy and traditionally, they have been the main source of supply to the citizens before the onset of the online retail and modern retail chains. With changing lifestyle and building types, it is becoming difficult for vendors to communicate their presence to the customers. To bridge this gap, Fellows from the India Smart Cities Mission of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, designed Mera Thela project that intends to amplify the link between street vendors and citizens via a mobile application.
Few benefits of the mobile app are listed below:
The app has two user categories : a customer and a street vendor
Facility for all vendors to register
Vendors' real time location is visualized
There is call facility for vendors and customers to connect with the each other
Facility to place order and make digital payment
Back-end admin panel to oversee operation & maintenance
MeraThela is scheduled to be piloted in Pune Smart City with support from Pune Municipal corporation. We have initially planned to have around 50 vendors on board and the app is expected to gain traction with time.
MeraThela" app will serve as a platform to bring more seamlessness in day-to-day engagement of customers and street vendors considering the pandemic situation, it is in interest of mutual convenience. This app has great promise in last mile connectivity of the market bringing fresh products and services to citizens’ door step. At Pune we are excitedly looking forward to rolling it out in our city.”
-Mr. Aniruddha Shahpure, CKO, Pune Smart City
National coordinator, SEWA
These potential case cities were identified after taking into consideration their suitability to the idea; idea’s relevance/ similarity with the type of ongoing projects in the city and the kind of administrative support within the city. To better understand this, the team made week-long reconnaissance visits to Bangalore and Pune and held meetings with various stakeholders and visited different sites. In addition, the team was also in touch with Rajkot city which showed interest.
After a month-long city-identification process, the team heard from Pune and headed there. Team initially had actualized four projects within the informal sector umbrella, tailored to each separate target group (street vendors, informal transport drivers, home-based workers and waste pickers). Post selection of the pilot city - Pune, the team pitched all the ideas to the Smart City Pune team and the Pune Municipal Corporation. Project on street vendors was chosen to be piloted in Pune as it was considered to have the highest chance of implement-ability in Pune's ecosystem (there were no e-rickshaws plying in the Pune city and in waste picking, similar model was already in place).
The mobile application paired with the backend admin panel is expected to gain widespread usage post its launch. While the application doesn’t have any restrictions to its outreach, it can be best promoted in cities which have a functional ICCC (Integrated Command and Control Center) in place. The ICCC will enable backend monitoring of the footfall (queries) generated through the mobile application and understand demand-supply interaction to make informed decisions. One of the personnel in the ICCC who are engaged in monitoring different services (waste collection trucks/ smart poles/ addressing grievances) can also monitor these services of informal workers. This will allow local street vendors to connect directly with customers residing in different building types, increasing their market reach significantly.
