When Dr Megha Bhargava, Mumbai’s Deputy IT Commissioner, learnt that the families of 66 daily wage earners in Koregaon had run out of food due to a financial crunch, she immediately started a fundraising campaign through Samarpan, an NGO she co-founded two years ago with her sister Dr Ruma, to help them out.
As soon as we read about rising cases in the news, we knew it would be easier for people like us who sit at home safely to help the needy and frontline workers. Many of these families have been starving for almost a week because there is no income coming in, which means that they cannot purchase food. We spoke to some families to understand what they need. Based on their requirements we have made food kits that will be enough for them for a month,” says Dr Megha tells The Better India.
Priced at Rs 1,000, each food kit contains rice, pulses, oil, sugar, vegetables and spices. Meanwhile, sanitary kits have soaps, sanitisers and masks.
So far, they have distributed over 750 such kits across the city including Dharavi, a densely populated slum, that has been sealed after a positive case. The current goal is to give a month’s food supply and sanitation kits to 10,000 families of wage-labourers and other needy people across the city.
Officials from her department, including Income Tax Deputy Commissioners Suresh Kataria and Aastha Madhur, and other medical practitioners have also joined their noble endeavour to help her financially and in procuring groceries, hand sanitisers and masks.
Dr Megha has tied up with the Mumbai Police and Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) to make the distribution process easier amidst a complete shutdown and also identify the right beneficiaries and deliver the kits at their doorstep.
Besides the needy, the team is also helping to distribute hand sanitizers and masks to front line workers like the police.
“The police force is doing a tremendous job in ensuring the people take this lockdown seriously. They are prioritising people’s safety over theirs, and this is the least we can do for them,” says Dr Rahul Pagare, who is actively involved in the activities of Samarpan.
Within two days of the lockdown, the NGO managed to give 800 bottles of hand sanitizers to Mumbai Police and 1,300 bottles to Gujarat Police to help them stay safe in their line of duty.
The rise in the number of COVID-19 cases, and the subsequent lockdown, has affected each of us in one way or another. However, people from marginalised communities such as house help, security guards, vegetable vendors are the most affected.
To sail through the crisis, we all need to step up and do our bit like Dr Megha and her hardworking team.
Source:-https://www.thebetterindia.com/222829/coronavirus-lockdown-mumbai-hero-irs-officer-donete-food-kits-migrant-workers-covid19-india-gop94/