Srinagar: International e-commerce giants have a new rival in Kashmir, Groxery. Malik Aadil, 28 years old, is aiming to be the boss in the online delivery business in Kashmir valley, his USP being instant delivery – within 70 minutes.
A resident of a remote area in Bandipora district, Aadil has built up his own in-house inventory of “everything”, as he calls it. In the past five months, three of which have passed under the Covid lockdown, Groxery has managed to hire 40 employees, who are for now catering to Srinagar district with more than 10K products in stock.
“By the fall of winter this year, we will supply in all the ten districts of the Valley,” Aadil told Kashmir Reader. “I am hiring 200 people for that. Groxery store will be a one-stop shop for purchase of everything. In just 70 minutes maximum you will get your order delivered. Other companies take days or weeks. In many cases they even fail to deliver, but we won’t. We have taken on board everything.”
“Be it wazwan, cosmetics, vegetables, clothing, handicrafts, everything will be there,” the short-statured, bearded, shy-looking Aadil assured.
Aadil will be operating his business through the Groxery app, which has been created in-house in Kashmir. From tech to business operations, Groxery will be run by local Kashmiri workforce, Aadil says.
Groxery is the third venture of Aadil in his three years of entrepreneurial journey. At 25, he quit his job at a company that was into e-commerce. He started his own event management company, Pro Branding 365. He took a loan of Rs 3 lakh from a bank, ran his office from a rented accommodation with four people, and did a business of Rs 3 crore in just three months.
Today he has more than 100 employees for his branding company, which has 10 offices in 10 different metropolitan cities across India. The company does a business worth billions of rupees, in 10 different verticals.
He still owes money to bank for the loans he has taken for the company. The monthly repayments work as motivation for him to keep making wealth. He also runs two restaurants, named Parsa’s, in Pune and Bangalore.
Now he has started another venture, the Groxery store, with an ambition to be the leading player in Kashmir.
It is remarkable that Aadil set up Groxery at a time when Kashmir is under Covid lockdown and the internet is shut down frequently. He says he had been thinking about the business plan for two years.
Aadil’s father is a government employee and his mother a homemaker. He credits the support from his family for keeping him going.
“Honestly, I don’t have to work for myself any more. I have more than enough for myself and my family. Now what I am doing is for the benefit of people. I am making sure that my workforce comes from Kashmir only,” he said.

Junaid Nabi Bazaz