HeyDidi, an all-women logistics start-up that provides delivery services for e-commerce companies and restaurants in Mumbai and Bangalore, will expand to Pune and Nagpur before Diwali.

The logistics service provider, which hires young women to carry out instant parcel delivery services on two-wheelers, was started in March in Mumbai on the occasion of International Women’s Day by social entrepreneur Revathy Roy. Last month, Hey Didi had tied up with Amazon to start delivery services in Bangalore with eight girls to run the courier service within the IT Park.

For the expansion, HeyDidi has trained 25 and 75 women in Pune and Nagpur, respectively.

The company provides 180 hours of training to poor, young women, after which they start delivery services. HeyDidi has trained around 50 girls so far. More than 400 women are undergoing training and 800 are waiting to get themselves enrolled.

Every girl who comes for training has to own a scooter. Roy has tied up with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and Pradhan Mantri Mudra Loan Bank Yojana to facilitate loans for the girls. The loan is repaid by the women themselves from their salaries.

“From not having owned anything worth more than K500 in their lives, these young women now own an asset worthRs.60,000. The major pull for these girls is that they get to be the owners of these assets. Also, taking a loan and paying the EMI (equated monthly instalments) instills a sense of financial discipline in them and gives them the confidence to take more and big loans in the future on their own,” said Roy.

The company has also got itself empaneled with the Maharashtra State Skill Development Society which is a department of National Skill Development Corp. and is in the process of getting funds from them for training the girls. In addition to that, they have signed a memorandum of understanding with RPG foundation (Goenka group) whereby the foundation would be responsible for funding the training of 250 girls.

Source: Mint