To further enable the last mile delivery in rural India and encourage entrepreneurship, PepsiCo India extended its partnership with Common Service Centres (CSC) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, to list its food products on Grameen eStore platform. After a successful pilot project in Uttar Pradesh, PepsiCo India’s snacking brands - Lay’s, Kurkure, and Uncle Chips will be listed on the CSC Grameen eStore across the hinterlands of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand and will continue to be listed in more districts of Uttar Pradesh. The products will be made available through 20,000 Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) and 489 Distributor Village Level Entrepreneurs (DVLEs).

PepsiCo India’s partnership with CSC is aligned with the Government of India’s mission of building ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’ by creating rural employment and making the digital inclusion of rural India a reality. The partnership started last year with a pilot in Uttar Pradesh involving 264 Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs), which received a positive response. Taking learnings from there, PepsiCo India has expanded the program and provided opportunities to existing VLEs to convert into DVLEs. This will further help in promoting rural entrepreneurship giving existing entrepreneurs more reach and potential to earn.

Dr Dinesh Kumar Tyagi, chief executive officer, CSC SPV, stated, “Our relationship with PepsiCo India has evolved with time. CSC has been working together in great synergies with PepsiCo India to create more opportunities for rural entrepreneurship. The extension of our partnership with PepsiCo India will certainly prove a milestone for CSC to ensure last-mile delivery in the hinterlands of rural India while enhancing rural entrepreneurship helping in the scaling of businesses and local employment. We need more such partnerships to bring alive the Government of India’s mission of building an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and driving digital Inclusion in rural and remote locations.”

To facilitate smooth rural eCommerce, the DVLEs will ensure products’ availability to VLEs. Customers can place the orders through the eStore that can either be picked up directly from VLE or delivered by the VLE at the doorstep, ensuring zero contact.

Speaking on the new developments, Aditya Sinha, senior director and head of sales, PepsiCo India, said, “CSC has been paramount in driving digital inclusion in rural and remote locations. The CSC Grameen eStore program is a unique purpose vehicle that has encouraged and economically empowered rural entrepreneurs. We started our partnership with CSC Uttar Pradesh, which has shown positive results. We are delighted to take this partnership forward to three more states besides expanding it in Uttar Pradesh. We are proud to be associated with this program and will continue to work closely with CSC to promote rural entrepreneurs and help create more synergies”.

A virtual event was organized to announce the partnership extension between CSC and PepsiCo India in the presence of Dr Dinesh Kumar Tyagi; J Raja Kishore, chief operating officer, CSC Grameen eStore; Aditya Sinha, senior director and head sales, PepsiCo India and Anand Sharma, director, Sales Strategy, PepsiCo India.

CSC Grameen eStore is a hyper-local eCommerce platform. The eStore is available as a mobile app on Google Play Store. Citizens can download the app to order provisions from their nearest CSC.

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