In a bid to mitigate the problems of poor and needy people and to provide food to stranded labourers, destitute, needy people, migrants and truck drivers from outside the District, during the lockdown period, three community kitchens have been set up by District Administration Udhampur in collaboration with local community volunteers.
In these community kitchens, the meals were cooked, packed and distributed among the stranded and needy persons at different locations of the district. The initiative had been widely hailed by people and till date, more than one lakh meals have been provided to needy persons at their doorsteps.
In the Community kitchens, more than 7000 packed meals were prepared and distributed among needy people in Udhampur town on a daily basis. The community kitchens were set up at different locations to efficiently cater the needy people in the peripherals areas.
Initially, one community kitchen was set up by the District Administration for feeding the stranded labourers and truck drivers. After observing the growing demand of food from different areas and getting requests from poor people particularly from slums, the District Administration with the help of civil society later added two more community kitchens at different locations. The District Administration also increased the capacity of community kitchens from preparing 2000 packets of food packets per day to more than 7000 packets. The officials and volunteers involved in the entire exercise ensured that the food was provided to every needy person and no one should left hungry in the district.
For proper management of these community kitchens, DDC Udhampur Dr Piyush Singla appointed, GM DIC Suram Chand Sharma as Nodal Officer, assisted by Chief Horticulture Officer (CHO) Udhampur B.V Gupta and three KAS trainee Officers Manik Singh Rathore, Ankush Tripathi and Sandeep Singh, and volunteers drawn from different government departments and organisations and localities of the areas.
Professional cooks prepared food in these community kitchens, volunteers packed and distributed the cooked food packets among the needy people at different locations. A distribution road map had been charted out, keeping in view all health advisories like maintaining social distancing and ensuring food hygiene while cooking and distribution. A central stock store has been established under the supervision of CHO at his office, wherefrom raw material was issued to different community kitchens.
Contact numbers of all the concerned officers and volunteers were widely circulated among the public. People in need of food contacted the phone numbers and got food packets delivered at their doorsteps. People also contacted the help-desk and control room established by the district administration. A large number of people have contacted the helpline numbers and benefited from the free food delivery service.
Furthermore, to strengthen the food security among the residents of the district, a team headed by IAS (Prob) Faz-Lul-Haseeb and AD FCS&CA Arif Lone monitors the distribution of dry ration among the people through PDS to ensure that all the people are covered and ration is provided to all households at their doorsteps. To cover the non-ration cardholders, a team headed by ACD Mushtaq Chowdhary in coordination with PRIs distributes dry ration among the needy people in rural areas. In urban areas, CEO Municipality in coordination with Councillors distributes dry ration among the needy people.
Chief Education Officer, Udhampur P D Sharma in coordination with PRIs, has already distributed dry ration to students under midday meal scheme. DDC Udhampur Dr Piyush Singla monitors the whole process closely and takes a daily report from all the heads of the departments.