Bengaluru, May 19 (IANS): Homegrown etailer Flipkart on Tuesday announced a partnership with retail store chain Vishal Mega Mart for the home delivery of essential items through a safe supply chain in 26 cities.

A Vishal Mega Mart Essentials store has been created on the Flipkart platform.

Consumers can order essential products like atta, rice, oil, pulses, beverages, soap, toothpaste, and other essential items from more than 365 Vishal Mega Mart stores and get them delivered at their doorstep by Flipkart as per the government guidelines across all zones (except containment zones).

Once a consumer places an order through the Flipkart app, the delivery executives will collect the products from the nearest Vishal store and deliver it at the customer's doorstep, the company said in a statement.

"The ability to work with the modern retail stores across cities will give consumers access to relevant products while enabling doorstep delivery of groceries and essentials. Backed by our robust technology platform, this will help consumers to have the real-time visibility of essentials available in their area," said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO, Flipkart Group.

The 26 cities are: Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, NCR -Delhi, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad, Patna, Goa, Guwahati, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Jaipur, Bareilly, Varanasi, Lucknow, Kanpur, Aligarh, Dehradun, Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, Raipur, Bilaspur and Bhubaneswar.

It will be further scaled to over 240 cities in the next four weeks.

"Now our customers can visit 365+ stores or order essentials from Vishal easily on Flipkart and have them delivered at their doorstep, in a safe and hygienic manner," said Gunender Kapur, CEO and MD at Vishal Mega Mart.