Amid the report of starvation deaths in Bundelkhand few people have joined hands and have started innovative "Roti ATM" scheme to provide free food to the poor and needy.
launched on the lines of bank ATM providing cash to the people 24x7 the Roti ATMs will also help in distributing food to the needy people. The project which was launched on experiment basis in Mahoba last year has spread to 10 blocks of the rugged Bundelkhand region.
Bundelkhand Samaj convenor Tara Patkar said here on Sunday that this Roti ATM has come as a big boon for the people who are starving. “Under this scheme food is collected from the people who can volunteer and then distributed among the poor,” he said.
Patkar said that it is a big example of voluntary service to the society. "Food packets are placed in a box where poor can take it as per their need. On the other hand people themselves donate food in a big way," he said.
Patkar said presently the food is being provided in the evening but very soon it will be made round the clock. "The Roti ATMs are also monitored by the shopkeepers”, he added.
The group, which began its work with beggars and destitute at the railway station, now covers a major part of the city. The beneficiaries include infirm patients and attendants outside hospitals, destitute on the roads and railway station, slum dwellers and poor undergoing treatment at home.
“Food is also distributed among the poor in villages who fail to make their both ends meet,” he said and added that the organisation appeals to the people to donate food for this Roti ATM.
This novel endeavour has come at a time when NGOs have carried out a survey to show that people in Bundelkhand are forced to eat rotis made of grass. The residents of village Naraini in Banda had recently shown rotis to members of a committee set up by Supreme Court Harsh Mandar and Dr Sajjad Hasan. Villagers complained about starvation deaths and explained the committee about the hardship they were facing. The committee members had told villagers that they would show this roti to Supreme Court judges.