Mumbai: Former top cop D Sivanandan's Roti Bank continues to feed city’s slum, school kids

A decade after his retirement from the state police as Director General of Police (DGP), D Sivanandan initiated a mission to serve the needy and poor by setting up Maharashtra’s first ‘Roti Bank’ in 2018. The Roti Bank started as a food rescue organisation that collected excess food from hotels and events to be distributed among hungry people, but now has its own kitchens designed to feed children nutritious cooked food and snacks in schools and slums. It provides 12,000 meals every day.

Roti Bank is currently expanding its reach across the country. Sivanandan, who was formerly Commissioner of Police (Mumbai), said he is doing this via his batchmates of the Indian Police Service posted in different states. “I have batchmates in Orissa, Gujarat, Telangana, Chennai, Nagpur and Coimbatore, where we will be expanding our service. India is a rich country, but there are more people here than anywhere. For them, Roti Bank will stand tall and serve every day,” he added.

The expansion comes three years after the service reached out to poor people in Nagpur, Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Chennai. It also collaborated with Mumbai’s famous tiffin carriers, popularly known as dabbawalas.

What made Sivanandan start Roti Bank

Sivanandan shared that during his time in the force, he gradually learnt that hunger makes children get into criminal activities. So, in a way, Roti Bank aims to curb crimes in the future.

Sivanandan said, “During my time as Joint CP Crime, I came across many children, especially in the slums, who went hungry almost every day. The suffering pulled them into crimes. I was a cop, I learnt it gradually. So we shifted our focus to children. Roti Bank currently collects dry ration like grains and dal donated by organisations and people and uses its kitchens to cook fortified meals.

Four kitchens cooking food for kids

When the pandemic was at its peak, Roti Bank had stopped distributing food for 10 days as they were afraid it could be a carrier of infection. However, later they realised the number of people who were sleeping hungry was on the rise. “We started cooking fresh meals at four kitchens in Chembur, Dadar, Goregaon and Borivali; this was distributed among the poor and needy. At that point, Covid may or may not have killed them, but hunger definitely would have. Hence we decided to keep our work going,” said Sivanandan.