By Express News Service
RANCHI: ‘Daal-Chawal,’ a team of professionals working outside the State and currently sitting idle at home in Ranchi, is distributing free dry-ration packets to the poor and needy who have lost their jobs or livelihood due to the lockdown.
Initially, the team of ‘Daal Chawal’ started it on their own with a Facebook post, “If you know someone around you who is in need, please let us know, we would try to help them,” which attracted tremendous response from the people and they started receiving funds from the people whom they did not even know.
The quartet –Trishi Pandey, Ria Pandey, Prashanto Banerjee and Priya Banerjee purchase dry ration from the market, convert them into small packets having rice, dal, biscuits or bread and distribute them among the needy people. The objective, according to them, is to provide basic requirements of life which is rice and dal along with biscuit and bread for children.
“The drive was started as people this time were more concerned about those who are infected from the virus, but no one was thinking about those who have lost their source of income due to the lockdown and are on the verge of starvation,” said Trishi Pandey, a lawyer by profession.
Though the government is also distributing ration among the poor which is done arbitrarily, they are doing it where government assistance has failed to reach after identifying such people, she added.
Trishi further added that they are trying to deliver free of cost basic grocery items to the people who are struggling for food in this situation.
“We make it a point to ask people before giving them the packets that whether they want it or not. Dry ration packets are given only after they say that they actually need, while many people refuse to take it,” said another member of Daal-Chawal, Prashanto Banerjee, who is an animation artist.
They are also getting leads from the people who tell them about the people who actually need help, he added.
“While discussing about the present scenario a fortnight ago, we thought why not do something as we were sitting idle at home. Then all of a sudden it was decided to distribute dry ration to the poor and needy who have no source of income or livelihood,” said Prashanto.
A Facebook page was made in the name of Daal-Chawal to make it convenient to reach out to the people who actually need help, he added.
Priya Banerjee, a teacher, said that it all started casually just to extend a helping hand towards the poor and needy, they had never though that they will get such a huge response from the people.
“The response from the people is really encouraging for us. We had never thought that we will get such a huge response from the people as we are getting funds from those whom we don’t even know,” said Priya Banerjee. It has been decided to continue till the lockdown is not lifted, she said.
Notably, Trishi and Ria are sisters while Priya and Prashanto are siblings. All of them belong to different professions and had come to their homes due to the lockdown.