THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Get cut vegetables, cow milk, eggs, fruits and dosa batter from ‘Honesty Box’ launched by Thum-pi.in, an e-commerce portal, together with a charitable trust Yatra and government-run State Horticultural Mission. The products are stored in a glass refrigerator and the price of each product is mentioned on the top of the packet. The consumers can keep the price of the items in a box kept near the refrigerator. There are no sales staff and the honesty box will be restocked when it gets depleted.
A new ‘Honesty Box’ will be opened at Secretariat annexe-2 near the railway reservation counter by agriculture minister V.S. Sunil Kumar at 3 pm on Wednesday. Thumpi.in is a start-up company launched by four techies in November last year that provides almost everything connected with agriculture.
From growbags and vermicompost to ready-to-cook organic products, vertical garden plants, orchids and desktop plants, Thumbi offers a wide range of services. They installed ‘Honesty Box’ at a private highrise apartment at Aalthara temple road which became highly popular. A resident there told DC that she could get cut vegetables from the lobby of the apartment. “I send my children to get aviyal and sambar cut vegetables from the ‘Honesty Box.’ I also get eggs, cow milk and dosa and idli batter,” she said.
Anoop Francis, one of the directors of Thumpi.in, said that more apartment complexes in the city at Jawahar Nagar would get the ‘Honesty Box’. “If they don’t have the money, they can deposit it in the box the next day. We have plans to appoint women employees to man the ‘Honesty Box’ at Vikas Bhavan where 29 state government departments function. For every packet they sell, they will get a subsidy of Rs 3,” he said. The products in the ‘Honesty Box’ are organic and procured from local farmers. The items are washed and packed in a clean environment near the College of Agriculture, Vellayani, and are ready to cook. The State Horticultural Mission has provided a subsidy of '15,000 to the start-up group.
