Food delivery app: Rural youth brings urban convenience to villages

In an inspiring story of innovation and determination, a 30-year-old youth from Shikrapur, a semi-rural town located around 50 kilometers east of Pune, has taken a bold step to address a pressing need in rural Maharashtra—the lack of online food delivery services.

- Dheeraj Bengrut

PUNE:

Nandakishore Hire, once employed with a Pune-based private company, is now the founder of Maharashtra's first rural-focused food delivery mobile application, aptly named 'Ek Plate'.

His journey from a corporate employee to a grassroots entrepreneur is a testament to the power of local solutions for local challenges. "Every time I visited home, I noticed something—even though people had smartphones and were familiar with apps, there was no way to order food online here," Nandakishore shared. "Companies like Swiggy and Zomato didn't cater to us. They stopped services at the city limits. Rural areas were just blank spots on their delivery maps," he added.

Frustrated by this gap, Nandakishore saw an opportunity. In 2021, after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, he left his job and returned to his hometown of Shikrapur, located on the Pune-Ahilyanagar highway about 30 km from Pune, with a plan to fix this void himself.