The mobile vegetable carts in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 25: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik today launched an online portal for sale of vegetables.

The online service started by the state agriculture department in association with Veggiekart Marketing Private Limited is aimed at providing green and fresh vegetables to customers through an integrated communication technology based distribution retail chain.

In the first phase, residents of Bhubaneswar can avail the benefit of the online portal. The consumers need to log in to www.veggiekart.co.in and place their orders.

The consumers need to place their orders before 12 hours of delivery. Consumers can also get the recipes of some common Odia dishes such as brinjal and potato masala and mushroom capsicum rice online. The officials of the private company said that the online booking of vegetables is the first-of-its-kind in the state.

At present, only cash-on-delivery system has been started. If the bill is more than Rs 250 there will no extra delivery charges.

Plans for credit and debit card payment are also available.

“Odisha is at present producing 95 lakh metric tonnes of vegetables from seven lakh hectares of land. So special emphasis should be given on the vegetable cultivation,” said Naveen.

Besides, the agency also introduced 15 mobile carts, which will sell vegetables in various parts of the city.

“The carts will be positioned at a crowded place,” said an official of the agency. The number of such mobile carts would be increased to 150 in future.

The agency has registered 560 farmers in several places including Keonjhar, Nayagarh, Ranapur and Daspalla.

“We will provide them seeds and other support needed for better production. The price of vegetables would be on par with the market prices,” said promoter of Veggiekart Marketing Private Limited Subrat Ranjan Prusti.

The mobile carts will sell vegetables in 100gram, 250gram, 500gram and 1kg packets.