A professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K), with the help of his colleagues and students, is working overtime in feeding 800 children of migrant workers who lost their jobs when the 21-day lockdown was imposed on March 25 to fight the Sars-Cov pandemic.
Professor Laxmidhar Behera (54) of electrical engineering department is running a kitchen in IIT-K community centre that cooks and distributes food to the poor children living around the campus. Instead of working in labs, he and his team are toiling with large sized cooking utensils
“We cook rajma-. Puri-sabzi, khichdi or rawa halwa at our community centre. Several colleagues, their spouses and students are also assisting me,” said Prof Behra who is also connected with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in Vrindavan.
“Charity work being carried out by ISKCON has always been an inspiration. Principal of a school which these kids attend approached me to help in providing them meals. Then I thought of running a kitchen for poor daily wagers and their children. Colleagues also pitched in and now their spouses help in preparing chapatis,” he said.
“IIT-K fraternity and even others are contributing money to help run this kitchen. Colleague Rajiv Gupta, physicis department and Virendra Tewari, a local leader has been a great help in running it,” professor Behra said.
“A group of IIT-Kanpur fraternity, consisting of faculty, staff and students, has volunteered group to prepare cooked meal packets for distribution among the distressed sections of the society located in the neighbourhood,” said Prof S Ganesh, deputy director at IIT-K.
“This volunteer group has been distributing food packets in the nearby areas for the past six days. For the initial three days 250 packets were distributed by the group headed by Prof LD Behera. After the broader involvement of the campus community, there has been a substantial increase in the number of food packets distributed. Now an NGO has partnered in running the community kitchen,” the deputy director said.
On March 31, 2020, 500 packets were prepared and distributed. On April 1, nearly 600 packets were prepared. Nearly 500 packets were distributed to the children at different brick kilns in Choubeypur area. The remaining were distributed to rickshaw-pullers and others in Nankari area. On April 2, nearly 700 cooked meal packets were distributed to the children at different brick kilns and others in need and now the number had increased to 800, Prof Behra said.
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