To make instant commerce a bigger reality in India, our 400+ stores are currently operating in 25 cities. One factor is common to all of them: a constant bustle, with our partners moving in and out, and the resulting noise. It’s common to hear commotion of sorts at play except for one: our store in Laxmi Nagar (Delhi). This place operates at as high a tempo as the rest of our stores but with minimal sound. 

Welcome to Blinkit’s first 'Silent Store' in India. 

Our Laxmi Nagar store is run by 20 specially abled individuals. They are unable to hear and speak but have shown us that they are immensely talented in other ways. Each one of them understands what our collective mission is and are exemplary in their output. This first-of-a-kind endeavour in our ecosystem is an attempt to open greater avenues for employment for the specially abled community. 

We feel we are only getting started as we are investing in making our systems more accessible and inclusive. As of now, we still have a lot of auditory cues during order processing at stores, which we are keen on solving innovatively. At the same time, we will be building more training muscle so that we can be inclusive towards onboarding more specially abled individuals to the Blinkit ecosystem.

Turns out our team has been remarkably conducive to the idea of inclusivity. Here’s our store manager Abhishek sharing his recent learnings while training our latest store team members –

The Laxmi Nagar store makes us aware of the fact that there is always more space to be inclusive, and the sheer curiosity, passion and liveliness of the Hearing Impaired community has strengthened our resolve to do more and create more opportunities that are accessible to everyone.

We are thankful to our partners – Dr. Reddy’s Foundation and Sarthak Educational Trust for their help in starting on this journey. We are committed to doing more and better for our community with their help.