JP Nadda urges street food vendors to embrace learning for business growth at training programme

New Delhi [India], July 20 : Union Health Minister JP Nadda on Saturday attended the launch of the portal and guidelines at the Training and Awareness Programme for Street Food Vendors and emphasized the importance of continuous learning for vendors and said that staying open to new knowledge is important for their business growth.
Nadda said, "In this training, we got the opportunity to know how the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is working with you to empower you."
Talking about the training that was given to the street vendors present at the programme, the Union Minister said that learning in life never ends. "If these people who gave you the training call you after 10 years, they will have 10 new things to teach you and you will have 10 new things to learn. This is an ongoing programme. Therefore, be determined to learn because this will only help your business grow," Nadda said.

Notably, FSSAI trained more than 1000 street food vendors under the Food Safety Training and Certification (FoSTaC) training programme in Vigyan Bhawan. The training focused on street food safety for street food vendors, aiming to enhance their knowledge and practice.
He further said, "Not a single city is there in India that is not associated with some food item and this is our heritage. In G20 also, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had raised this topic. When representatives from all over the world came, they should not just stay in New Delhi but should also travel around the country. That's why, about 200 meetings were held in 75 cities so that whoever came, could visit the whole country and see the country's culture."
Nadda further spoke about PM Modi's vision to make everyone empowered. He said, "PM Modi's dream is to empower every human being and what does empowerment mean? Empowerment means that whatever work is done, it is done in a good way after being trained. And there is a big difference between trained and untrained, skilled and unskilled. If one gets trained, then one can expand their business and reap benefits."
During the training programme, the street vendors were also given testing kits for testing oil, milk and milk products, and other food items.
Speaking on the distribution of testing kits, Nadda said, "The ones present here also received testing kits. The testing kit will help the vendors to know whether the ingredients like oil, spices and other things that they are using are of good quality or not."
The Union Minister also talked about the PM SVANidhi scheme, launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to grant affordable loans to street vendors and said, "People have recieved loans amounting to Rs 8,600 crore under the scheme. They have used it to improve their business and have got very good results."
Nadda also emphasised that the government's aim is that people's business grows, and people get good food. He added, "I have full faith that in the 'Viksit Bharat', our street food vendors will also develop, and will contribute to 'Viksit Bharat.'"