SHGs in Retail Food

Street-Side Food Court near Eco Space, New Town: nearing completion 

In the last meeting of the Board of NKDA, we decided that the Food Court near TCS/ Eco Space roundabout being built by NKDA would be made over to the District Administration to enable Self Help Groups of nearby village women to run the stalls. This is a part of a strategy to recognise street economy and attempt to formalize it.

There are many unplanned shanties serving food to IT personnel on roadside opposite to Eco Space and near TCS campus in New Town's Action Area 2. This shows that the zone is very profitable for food vendors. So a new structure with public conveniences has been built where SHGs will run their own food business at subsidized rent so that not only will they will do a business that works but also will, hopefully, wean away people from the shanty-like food kiosks on roadside.

We took a slightly different strategy for roadside stalls near Unitech IT complex. We, from NKDA, built, in consultation with the vendors, a planned food court and all have now shifted there. The frontage - where the black shanties stood earlier - is a green garden now.

For Action Area 1, a food court has been built by NKDA some time ago near the office of DC Police. Now we just formed a committee to see how the stalls in the food court can be effectively used to provide citizens what they want (neighbourhood food / vegetable etc stalls) in a planned manner.

All these are, of course, in addition to the 8 formal markets that have already been built all across New Town, markets that houses xerox shops to medical polyclinics, from Kathleen Cakes to Mother Dairy outlets.

In Sector 5, we are planning to create a food hub in a parking lot of one acre size (plot AQ 11) where parking will be in several levels while food stalls will be at the ground / street level. Design process is going on.

Meanwhile, in accordance with a Board decision of NDITA, an Expression of Interest has been invited for getting a consultant for surveying and making a plan for rehabilitating existing roadside foodstalls in Sector 5: the EoI notice can be seen at http://ndita.org/egovernance/images/stories/NIT_27.PDF

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Millennium Post dt 4 February 2017