Mauli: India’s First All-Women Clean Street Food Hub

India’s first women-led street food hub opens in Mumbai, blending hygiene, empowerment, and FSSAI-certified safety.

On August 17, 2025, Union Minister Shri Piyush Goyal inaugurated “Mauli” – India’s first all-women Clean Street Food Hub – in Kandivali, Mumbai. Launched under the FSSAI’s Eat Right India movement, Mauli represents a landmark initiative blending food safety, women’s empowerment, and sustainable street food entrepreneurship.

While India already has over 405 certified Clean Street Food Hubs (CSFHs), Mauli is the first to be entirely operated by trained women from Self-Help Groups (SHGs). These women have been professionally trained and licensed under FoSTaC (Food Safety Training and Certification) – a structured program by FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) that educates food handlers on hygiene, sanitation, and safety protocols. This makes Mauli a pioneering example of formal licensing and compliance in a sector historically dominated by unregulated and informal street food vendors.

The project didn’t emerge overnight. Its foundation was laid back in March 2024, when FSSAI’s West Region signed an MoU with BMC/MCGM (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) to create the country’s first all-women CSFH. This was followed by a large-scale “license mela” – a mass registration and licensing drive in Mumbai that helped onboard around 90 SHG women vendors, offering them licenses, FoSTaC training, and structured support.

A Clean Street Food Hub (CSFH) is not just a cluster of stalls – it’s a certified food zone that meets the strict safety standards laid out under Schedule 4 of the Food Safety and Standards Regulations, 2011. To qualify, a hub undergoes a two-tier audit process:

• First, hub-level infrastructure is assessed, including potable water, clean public toilets, covered drains, lighting, pest control, and waste disposal systems.

• Second, stall-level practices are inspected for cooking temperatures, safe food handling, use of food-grade materials, personal hygiene, and protective gear.

The compliance scoring bands are clear:

🔸 >90% = Exemplar (ideal for tourism and branding)

🔸 76–89% = Satisfactory

🔸 66–75% = Needs Improvement

🔸 <66% = Non-Compliant

Each vendor must also provide a paper trail, which includes an FSSAI license or registration, a FoSTaC Supervisor certificate, a municipal NOC (No Objection Certificate), and NABL-accredited water test reports. NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories) ensures the authenticity of water safety tests.

At Mauli, you won’t find food served on newspapers, thermocol plates, or any non-food-grade material. There’s strict adherence to prohibited practices, including the reuse of disposable plates, unsafe oil reuse, or unsanitary waste handling—all of which are critical inspection points.

Beyond its safety credentials, Mauli is a bold statement of economic inclusion. It offers women-led governance with clear systems for stall rotation, rent and revenue sharing, and collective decision-making. During the launch event, over 200 street food vendors underwent a mass training session, with FSSAI announcing plans to train over 10,000 vendors in the region under the Eat Right India campaign.

What makes Mauli especially notable is its trilateral governance model. It demonstrates successful coordination between national regulators (FSSAI), urban authorities (BMC/MCGM), and community stakeholders (SHGs)—an ideal case study in public health meets grassroots entrepreneurship.

Maintaining these standards is no small task. FSSAI mandates quarterly internal audits and annual third-party evaluations to keep hubs compliant. Key risk areas include vendor churn, stall misuse, and decline in hygiene practices. Real-time tracking via Mobile Food Testing Labs (MFTLs)—of which 305 are deployed in 35 States/UTs—helps ensure quick responses to safety breaches.

Critical compliance areas include safe oil use, sealed drainage systems, daily waste lifting by municipal workers, and pest control AMC logs. Water quality and food contact materials are especially sensitive—any slip-up in using NABL-tested water or approved utensils can lead to immediate decertification.

Yet even as it celebrates empowerment, Mauli must navigate potential pitfalls. Gentrification risks—wherein improved infrastructure could raise stall rents or exclude legacy vendors—must be managed carefully. Planners need to balance affordable pricing, transparent stall allocation, and vendor support facilities like childcare and credit access to ensure inclusive development.

As India moves from traditional khau-gallis to certified street food destinations, hubs like Mauli set a replicable template. Projects like Indore’s Chappan Dukaan have already shown how clean, regulated street food can boost urban tourism and local employment. The Eat Right India movement is helping cities nationwide adopt similar models, with certified hubs becoming hygiene-assured culinary hotspots.

The future success of Mauli will be tracked using data-backed KPIs, including daily footfall, average ticket size, repeat customer rates, and sample test pass/fail metrics—all measurable through MFTLs. With over 3 lakh vendors trained under FoSTaC and an expanding network of compliant hubs, Mauli is more than just a food cluster—it’s a model for safe, inclusive, women-led street food entrepreneurship.

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