The Dehradun district administration has done all the preparations to keep providing meals to those in need during the extended lockdown till May 3, said Dehradun chief development officer (CDO) Nikita Khandelwal. Besides, over one lakh cooked food packets have been distributed by the district administration so far.
After imposition of the lockdown, the district administration has been providing cooked food and dry ration to hundreds of people in Dehradun that include daily wagers, students, senior citizens, destitute people and locals living below poverty line. With the extension in the period of lockdown, providing food to such people can be a great challenge for the administration. However, the district administration had done all the calculations and analysis even before the announcement of lockdown extension, said Khandelwal. According to her, the police have all the records of dry ration kits recipients and how long the ration kit is expected to last. Besides, the administration has enough food supplies to fulfill the requirements of food and ration till May 3, informed Khandelwal. Talking about the food distribution, the CDO said, "Currently we prefer to distribute dry ration kits over cooked food packets but cooked food packets also come handy during those days when the dry ration is not available immediately." However, the cooked food packets are distributed more than dry ration kits as per the requirement of people. Till now, the district administration has distributed around 1,16,022 cooked food packets besides 18,745 dry ration kits with the help of several organisations. On Tuesday, 5,480 cooked food packets and 1,798 dry ration kits were distributed by Dehradun district administration.