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Hyper-local e-commerce firm magicpin has forayed into quick commerce for food delivery with the launch of its magicNow brand that will work for over 2,000 food brands and 1,000 merchants to start with, the company said on Tuesday. Unlike other quick commerce players, magicpin will not operate via dark stores for food delivery, the company said in a statement. "magicNOW is to provide fast food delivery within a 1.5 km to 2 km radius to maintain freshness and cuisine integrity, and will be initially launched in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, and Pune," magicpin said. magicNOW will leverage the service of magicpin's logistic aggregator vertical -- Velocity. Under Velocity, magicpin acts as an aggregator of its third party logistics partners such as Shadowfax, Dunzo, Rapido, Porter, OLA, Zypp etc for the supply backend, consolidating all 3PL services under one umbrella for brands and its sellers. magicpin is currently offering Velocity to multiple brands including K
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday said the food delivery economy is very important for India as it generates large-scale employment. Addressing Zomato's 'Sustainability and Inclusivity: Role of the Platform Economy' conference, the Road Transport and Highways minister said that at present India has 77 lakh delivery workers and this number is likely to touch 2.5 crore by 2030. "Giving employment to 2.5 crore youths of this country is really a big thing for the country...The most important priority for all of us is to create jobs," he said. The minister also appreciated online food delivery platform Zomato for providing employment to a lot of unemployed youth of the country. He also expressed concerns about the number of road accidents and said the delivery boys have high chances of meeting accidents as they have to deliver the items in a limited time frame. Gadkari said that in India, 45 accidents and 20 deaths take place per hour. The maximum lives lost are between the age