Gurugram: The first time they had a proper meal since Covid lockdown

For the first time in three days, more than 100 underprivileged families in Surat Nagar slept on a full stomach, on April 2. Their food was on the verge of running

For the first time in three days, more than 100 underprivileged families in Surat Nagar slept on a full stomach, on April 2. Their food was on the verge of running out when help arrived from the Gurgaon Nagrik Ekta Manch, a citizens’ group that has been working towards providing food to labourers and migrant workers left stranded in the city since the beginning of the 21-day nationwide lockdown, imposed to curb the spread of the Sars-Cov-2.

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The group is a collective of around 2,000 local residents who are using their resources to channelise food items and rations, reaching out to underprivileged families on a daily basis. For this, they have put in place a process to first scan appeals received personally or through social media to determine the urgency and choose recipients, pack rations, and then transport them to those in need.

“We have a team of over 2,000, all regular residents of the city, each of whom contributed money for this initiative,” said Rahul Roy, a member of the Manch overlooking the operations said.

Roy says the process of providing food usually begins some days before it reaches residents — the starting point is the appeals that come through “Whatsapp groups, mass organisations, NGOs and individuals.”

In the hours that follow, a team of 10 verifies basic details over the phone to determine if the area indeed has a demand and whether it is getting ration supply from another volunteer group. Subsequently, a site visit is conducted by a volunteer to gauge the needs of the area, ascertain a point of local contact, the number of households in need of rations, and their addresses, along with basic identification details.

Once this process is through, a procurement team works towards gathering the rations using contributions made by members of the Manch as well as residents of the city. These are then stored and packaged at a catering facility in Udyog Vihar which, prior to the lockdown, would sell food to offices and organisations.

Each package given to a family by the group has five kilogram (kg) of rice, five kg flour, one litre bottle of mustard oil, one kg salt, 500 grams turmeric, some coriander and red chilli powder, one soap bar and 1.5 kg of pulses.

“We volunteered to help the Manch supply food to those in need ever since the lockdown began. I have a team of six who pack all these items and when the volunteers arrive, they load the rations in their cars,” says Vipin Sharma, who runs the catering facility.

It is around noon that these vehicles – usually around 10-15 in number – arrive at the facility to pick up the rations and deliver them to local contacts across the city.

“It is the local contacts who are further responsible for overseeing their distribution to individual families,” said Roy, adding that the team of volunteers are divided a day in advance, as per the demand.

For example, if 100 packets of ration are required in Sirhaul village then three members are allotted the task of delivering the rations in their individual vehicles. If it is a smaller number, such as 10-15 packets that need to be dropped near the Hero Honda Chowk, for instance, then one volunteer’s vehicle would suffice.

On an average, members say ration is supplied to 250 to 300 families every day across areas that include Nathupur village, Khandsa road, Railway road, Sarhaul village, and Sikanderpur, which have a high concentration of migrant and daily wage workers who are out of work and hence have no money to purchase essential items for a living, and are on the brink of starvation.

“Most of these slum dwellers work as daily wage earners, auto-rickshaw drivers, construction workers and domestic helps. The lockdown has left them in a lurch since they lead a hand-to-mouth existence. With no work, they do not have the money to procure food and feed their families,” said Gulaab, a member of the Surat Nagar Mahila Samiti, which coordinated the ration supply that reached the area’s residents last week.

Located close to the Daulatabad flyover, sandwiched between the Dwarka Expressway and the railway tracks, Surat Nagar in Sector 104 is an area of contrast — concrete houses with winding, narrow lanes are set off against small slum clusters that appear unexpectedly, scattered across the neighbourhood.

Hailing mostly from Bengal and Bihar, the migrant workers who reside in these slums say they have been struggling to find even one square meal a day ever since the 21-day lockdown was imposed, and were expecting to run out of rations by the second weekend of April.

Salim Alam, an auto-rickshaw driver, said, “My earnings have come down to zero ever since the lockdown has been imposed. I cannot take my vehicle out on the roads, and there are no passengers even if I try. I have been feeding my family of five using whatever money remained, but I could not have continued in this way even until the end of this week. The rations we have received today have saved our lives.”

For the volunteers engaged in distribution works, however, the task is not without its cons, with them risking themselves to infections as they visit highly congested areas to complete the job.

“We take multiple precautions. The basics, of course, are that we all wear masks and gloves and carry hand sanitisers with us. In addition, the moment we enter our homes after completing the delivery, we go straight for a shower and put our clothes in the wash, to avoid any infection we may have caught from impacting our surroundings,” said Shehnaz Hussain, a member of the group who lives in Sector 5.

In order to ensure that the process of delivery is smooth, the group members say they have given additional guidelines to their volunteers as well and cautioned them to ensure that they “don’t get mobbed”. Furthermore, considering the short supply of rations, volunteers have been advised to abandon the task if, while delivering, they sense that ration has already reached the people through other sources.

The fight for the volunteers is, they say, not just a physical one against coronavirus as they expose themselves to risk of infection by roaming around the city and handling goods but also an emotional one, as they struggle to persuade their families on a daily basis to let them go out. Among them is Vipin, a caterer, who says leaving his house for the work is a daily struggle as he has to convince his family members that it is worth the risk.

“My relatives are very concerned about me as I go out on a daily basis for this work. They keep on trying to dissuade me and tell me to stay in the house like everyone else but I cannot do that. The work I am doing is for the greater good. There are people who are not getting even one square meal a day for no fault of theirs; it is nothing short of my duty to help in any way I can,” said Vipin.

HOW A PACKET OF RATION IS PROVIDED TO THOSE IN NEED

Step 1: A team of around 10 members from Gurgaon Nagrik Ekta Manch scan Whatsapp groups, or get alerts from mass organisations, NGOs and individuals about those in dire need of rations

Step 2: The team then identifies a local point of contact in the area and verifies whether there is an actual need, and also ascertains the quantity of which it is needed

Step 3: A team of volunteers then collect packets of ration — each consisting of five kg rice, five kg flour, one-litre mustard oil, one kg salt, 500 grams turmeric, coriander powder, red chilli powder, one soap bar, and 1.5 kg pulses, from a warehouse in Udyog Vihar and loads the same in their private vehicles.

Step 4: They then drop off the rations with their local contact, who is responsible for overseeing the distribution