Indian Street Vendors using conventional vending carts faced a tough year due to COVID -19 pandemic. The year-round lockdown has made them lose customers because of restriction on mobility. Even if they could go out, hand hygiene, wearing a mask and maintaining social distancing while dealing with customers were important aspect which people considered while buying from the street hawkers and this in turn hampered their sales and affected their livelihood.
In such times, Ministry of Commerce & Industry in collaboration with National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, organized a competition for designing Street Vending Carts for a COVID-19 era. The aim was to design new and cost-effective cart models to address the challenges faced due to COVID-19. Sixty-six student teams from 5 different NIDs participated in this competition to build such a model cart. Street vending cart for Food Business and for fruit and vegetable vendors were considered under this competition.
Design of the cart had to consider aspects like display of items, packaging of goods, billing while maintaining hygiene, foldability, mobility and compactness of the cart, accessories like dustbin, seat, shade, lighting and power supply to make the cart efficient and attract customers adapting to the changing times. The government is planning a large-scale distribution of these modern carts to street vendors. Some of the models presented in the competition: CHARIOT, APNA CART
