NGO joins hands with marketing dept. to supply fruit packs

Over 30,000 fruit packs supplied to people in a week

Minister for Agriculture S. Niranjan Reddy with a fruit pack.

Overwhelmed by the response to its initiative of doorstep delivery of fruit packs — a basket of six varieties of fruits weighing nearly 11 kg in all for ₹300 — the Agricultural Marketing department has roped in one more partner for the purpose.

In addition to the call centre numbers — 7330733212 and 9114445555 — for placing order for fruit packs, the department has roped in Walk for Water, an NGO that educates farmers on conservation of water in agriculture. So far, a farmer-producer organisation (FPO) Crop to Kitchen has been supplying the fruits by tying up with farmers for supply of fruits from their farms.

The new partner would supply fruit packs by taking orders from consumers seeking fruits with a missed call on number 8875351555, Minister for Agriculture S. Niranjan Reddy said, adding that the initiative has been a boonnot only for people unable to purchase fresh fruits during the lockdown but helpful to farmers too, who had been facing problems in marketing their produce.

According to the marketing department officials, after giving a missed call on the new number, the consumers would get an SMS with a web link to take the details of the consumer along with the number of fruit packs required. The orders taken in that manner would be fulfilled within 78 hours. They have already supplied fruit packs to over 30,000 consumers in the city in a week’s time.

Orders placed on the two call centre numbers and the new number would be delivered free of cost if there are orders for a minimum of 30 fruit packs in residential colonies, gated communities and apartment complexes and some service charges would be collected for fewer orders. The consumers who place the order for packs below 30 would get a phone call from the initiative partners indicating the amount of service charges.

Complimenting the founder of Walk for Water B. Karunakar Reddy for joining the initiative, the Minister said purchase of fruits as part of the initiative was directly helpful to farmers who were worried about suffering losses unable to market their produce. He also appealed to philanthropists and others to give bulk orders for fruit packs so that they could be supplied on their behalf to the front line warriors in the fight against coronavirus such as sanitation workers besides orphanages and old age homes.