Siliguri, 16th April: The entire nation is under lockdown to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the government has allowed shops selling essential commodities to open their stores for all, however, some people, especially the elderly, are not being able to step out of their houses. Besides, people are also spotted crowding the market areas ignoring government guidelines of social distance.
To prevent this situation, Siliguri youth Shiv Bansal launched Janta Delivery, a hyperlocal logistics service that delivers groceries and other essential items to the customer’s doorstep.
Bansal, who is a banker by profession, after seeing the struggle of the general public during the lockdown, decided to launch a home delivery service for the people. He, along with a team of 5 members reaches door-to-door to deliver essential commodities.
The three primary goals of Janta Delivery are:
- Deliver grocery to the doorstep so that people can still respect social distancing
- Provide employment to migrant workers so that they can sustain their livelihood
- Discourage people from hoarding groceries by providing them a reliable delivery service
How it works:
- A customer places his/her grocery order by sending a Whatsapp text on +91-76022-50045 or through their website.
- Once the order is received, it is sent to the respective store and their team coordinates with them for order preparation.
- Once the order is prepared, the nearest delivery agent is informed to pick up the order along with the bill and pays for it upfront.
- The delivery agent then meets the customer, hands over the bill made by the network store, receives the payment of the bill amount along with INR 50 delivery charges and hands over the ordered items to the customer.
- All the coordination is currently done over phone calls or Whatsapp texts.
- The Janta Delivery delivers more than 40 orders per day and expect this to increase as the lockdown gets extended. They are also working on delivering other essential items like medicines and vegetables. In the first 15 days of operations, they have delivered more than 250 orders and have saved more than 1,400 people from stepping out to buy their essentials.