Tirupati: Feeding needy with leftover food from hotels

Tirupati: A group of youth from Tirupati has started an initiative to feed the needy in the nights by collecting the leftover food from the hotels. They have been doing this for the past six months and trying to expand it further if more hotels come forward to provide the remaining food to them.

According to a study of the United Nations, the food being wasted in India is more than it consumes. The average person in India wastes 137 grams of food every single day and the country was ranked 101 out of 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2021 list.

Keeping these facts in view, the members of Team Abhimanyu and Bheeshma led by Neelesh Kumar Kuppala along with Prasanth Koyyalagunta, Praveen Mylu, Mohan Krishna Reddy, Bhavani Sowmya, Sreelekha Araveeti, Kousik Raja M, Kotte Vamsi came forward to control food wastage in the pilgrim city which can effectively address the hunger of needy and destitute. They are all working in Bluerose Technologies Pvt Ltd in Bengaluru and now working from home.

They collect food from the hotels, who agreed to help their cause at 10.30 pm daily and distribute it to people on roads at several places. The team members said, "Our team is looking for a change. We saw many people starving and they are not finding any daily labour. We have tied up with a few hotels initially and are collecting food from them to provide for the desperate people."

Neelesh said as they are providing nutritious food from hotels it will help the people work efficiently the next day. As of now, they could provide the collected food to about 60-70 people daily. When other hotels also help them in this task, they are planning to hire a group of people to continue the initiative further. They are also providing clothes, medicines and other basic needs for the needy.