How Zomato's Feeding India Initiative Is Making Life Better For Daily Wage Workers Amid The Lockdown

New Delhi: The coronavirus pandemic is not just a health crisis but it is also a huge economic and social fallout.  The immediate impact can be seen in the drying up of livelihoods of a large number of families surviving on daily wages due to the complete lockdown in the country to control COVID-19. To protect large population of migrant and daily wage workers from hunger, India's foodtech giant - Zomato has come up ‘Feeding India' campaign. Talking about this non-profit initiative during NDTV-Dettol #IndiaAgainstCOVID19 telethon, Chandan Mendiratta, Head of Zomato Feeding India campaign said,

Amid the lockdown crisis due to coronavirus outbreak in the country, Zomato India decided to help the most vulnerable community. And that's when ‘Feed The Daily Wagers' initiative was born. On March 24, we told the world about this initiative and opened the user base funding for the project, wherein users can come and donate money Rs 500 (for one family), Rs 1500 (for 3 families) and Rs 2500 (for5 families). With the help of money raised, we decided to distribute ration kits and help the community. We got immense response from the users, out of a target of 50 crores, we have till now raised 27 crores for the initiative. 


Giving out details about the ration kits being provided, Mr Mendiratta added that Zomato decided to distribute ration kits instead of cooked meals because a cooked meal is good for one time, whereas, ration kit is good for about 100 meals. He further added,

The ration kits that we are distributing consists of daily essentials like wheat, pulses and rice to name a few. One ration kit can help give three meals a day for a family of five people for about a week. 
Zomato India till now has distributed around 2,50,000 ration kits in over 30 different cities in India.

Talking about the distribution process, Chandan Mendiratta added,

This initiative is being done with utmost precautions, we are providing these kits at the individual households or their nearby areas. If the queuing is done, it is done with all the necessary precautions which need to be taken at this time of coronavirus crisis. We have about 2,50,000 kits in operation and those will be distributed in next five-six days. We have partnered with multiple NGOs on the ground to help ensure responsible distribution of these kits while adhering to proper guidelines.