New Delhi: Online food delivery company Swiggy has announced that it will soon pilot the use of drones for its quick grocery delivery service named ‘Instamart’.

Four drone companies including Marut Dronetech, Garuda Aerospace, ANRA+TechEagle Consortia, and Skyeair Mobility have been reportedly shortlisted for the initiative. The project will be operational in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR in the initial phase.

The drones will move stocks from the dark stores to a particular location which is close to the location of the delivery, as the company refers to it as the ‘middle-delivery layer’. A dark store is a fulfillment center that helps in carrying out the ultra-fast delivery demands.

A delivery person will be picking up the order from this particular location and deliver it to the address of the user. For now, Swiggy will be evaluating the use of drones for its operations in its grocery services only.

The company informed that the pilot project will be carried out in two phases, wherein Skyeair and Garuda will conduct the pilot run in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru respectively. The initial phase is expected to commence from next week onwards.

Though, the second phase of the initiative will be conducted by start-ups ANRA+TechEagle and Marut Dronetech only after analyzing the findings and learnings from the first pilot run.

“Our intent is to use valuable learnings from the first tranche and design a tranche two experiment to specifically address any shortcomings that are identified,” Swiggy said.

Swiggy’s pilot drone run has been seen as a counter to its compeer Zomato, which had recently announced a 10-minute food delivery service for its users.