Hyderabad: Feeding the city's hungry

Given the fact that in a city like Hyderabad there are thousands who go to sleep with empty stomach each day, even as huge amounts of food go waste at restaurants, food joints and hotels, the city chapter of 'No Food Waste' has taken upon itself to collect the leftover food from various establishments to feed underprivileged people.

Finding that the food which is leftover is usually carted off to dustbins, this organisation started collecting the surplus untouched food from weddings, parties and other food sources to feed the needy and hungry people.

Venkat Murali, Telangana State Coordinator, said, "With the aim of stopping wastage of food and also ensure healthy and nutritious food reaches needy people, this NGO was first started by Padmanaban Gopalan at Coimbatore and slowly several volunteers joined the programme in various States that include Telangana and many more."

'No Food Waste' Hyderabad chapter started its operations on 2019. So far it has helped redistribute and fill nearly 1 lakh plates of joyful food. "Every day, the excess food collected is used to feed the needy and daily around 1200 to 1400 people are fed. If you look at it in terms of figures, nearly Rs 8 crore worth food loss has been prevented," says Murali.

The chapter uses six vans for food pickup from various destinations across the city. For the purpose, the NGO had approached various hotels, which generously came forward to help its noble cause. If anyone has excess food from an event, party, wedding etc, they can call 90877 90877 and 'No Food Waste' volunteers will collect excess food from you and distribute it among people who need it. The excess food will be checked for quality because lack of proper refrigeration and storage tend to spoil the food.

Not only that, recently the NGO launched an ambulance service too. It attends 3 calls per day within 20-km radius. This will be a complete free service to poor people for shifting from hospital to hospital, added Murali.