Dhanbad residents can now order their favourite spicy jhalmuri from the streets of Jharia and mouth-watering Kulcha treats of Saraidhela through online food delivery platforms like Zomato and Swiggy.

Over 50 street vendors dealing in different food items on Thursday expressed keen interest in joining hands with Zomato during the concluding day of the training of first batch of 50 vendors being organised by the Dhanbad Municipal Corporation as part of fortnight long training, under the Support to Urban Street Vendors (SUSV) component of Deendayal Antyodaya Yojna National Urban Livelihood Mission (DAY NULM).

The Zomato representatives were allowed to explain the process of registration to food street vendors during the second day of training in an effort to provide a digital and online platform for better marketing of products as earlier 25 street vendors had already registered themselves with Swiggy at the initiative of Dhanbad Municipal Corporation.

The training aimed at orienting street vendors about their rights and responsibilities, specific policies and laws related to them, food safety, maintenance of hygiene and waste was organized with the support of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), a statutory body of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The trainees were apprised about the ways of maintaining better hygiene while cooking, storing and packaging food, besides keeping the shops and surrounding clean, using hand gloves and hair band, use of sanitizers amidst increased safety concerns among people.

Talking to The Telegraph Online on Thursday, Chandra Shekhar, City Manager (NULM) of Dhanbad Municipal Corporation (DMC) said, “The training being organised by all the Urban Local bodies of the state simultaneously on the instruction of state Directorate of Municipal Administration which is also aimed at ensuring inclusive growth with increased contribution of Urban street vendors to national economy is being imparted by five experts of Food Safety Awareness and Training Organization (FSATO) on behalf of FSSAI.”

Altogether 12 hours training of six hours each of two day is being provided to each batch of 50 street vendors on the day of one of which they have also apprised about various laws pertaining to them, ways of preventing food spoilage, food poisoning and illness caused due to sell of spoiled foods; hand washing techniques, cleaning practices, purchase and storage of raw material.

On the concluding day of the training during which the vendors were also provided certificates they were also provided guidance about reducing purchasing cost and wastage; besides improving customer service, ways of improving business using digital platforms, ways of availing and various government schemes for financial support to them like PM Swanidihi Yojna.

Nisha Devi a street food vendor of Purana Bazar selling chowmin, eggroll etc said, “The training was very useful as we came to know about hygiene as well registration procedures for selling our products Online through Zomato and Swigy.”