Mumbai: An NGO engaged in building education infrastructure is home delivering groceries to senior citizens and has made around 500 deliveries across the city since the lockdown was enforced.
Vickaash Agarwal, national CSR convenor of Round Table India, said it is a young people’s organisation with members below 40 years of age. The idea was conceived when they noticed that there were many senior citizens who stayed alone in the city and needed help.
“Initially, shops near them had closed down and they were facing challenges in procuring household items,” Agarwal said, adding that the service is need-based and only if the senior citizen stays alone.
The Mumbai chapter of the organisation made a team of 30 volunteers who use their private vehicles to deliver the items.
The deliveries are free of cost, but people must pay for the items they order. The organisation helped a senior citizen in Bandra whose daughter is abroad and whose house help had gone to their native village after the lockdown.
“He was unable to go down the building to buy groceries too. We arranged home cooked food for him from our own home for a few days till a local hotel near him started delivering,” said Vishal Mirpuri of Round Table India, whose wife is taking care of the cooked food needs of seniors living alone in his area.
With online food ordering and delivery platforms starting to deliver provisions now, the organisation is helping seniors place orders on these platforms. Many times, they receive requests to deliver medicines.
However, they deliver medicines only in critical and emergency situations if senior citizens have no more stock left with them. They try to help the senior citizens procure medicines through online websites that deliver.
