With the Coronavirus pandemic and its consequent six-week-long unprecedented lockdown wreaking havoc among the poor and marginalised communities, Dineout, a dining out and restaurant tech platform, is rapidly scaling up the work of its recently launched community-driven initiative, Project Thali across 20 cities. Aimed at serving the poor and vulnerable communities, the brand has been using the donations collected from the drive to cook meals using the sanitised kitchens and expert chefs of its partner restaurants to feed the hungry.
Hosted in partnership with non-profit World Help Group, this initiative invited people to donate rations, cooked food, volunteer or donate by means of guaranteeing food security for a vulnerable family for 15 days for Rs 1400 only. Over 1,00,000 KG of rations and food has been distributed to thousands of individuals in less than three weeks, the brand has been leveraging the cooking infrastructure of its 20,000 strong partner restaurant community including Delhi Zaika, Keiba and Madras Diaries in Mumbai and Chaayos and Biryani By Kilo in Delhi NCR among others to feed more than 1.5 lakh people from malnourished communities on a daily basis.
"In light of the current situation, we are exponentially scaling up Project Thali to cover as many poor and marginalised communities in the shortest span of time. Our extended team of 1500 plus volunteers have been toiling to help make a difference in the lives of these sections of our society, and our collaboration with leading restaurants in the country has given us the opportunity to work in synergy to have a larger impact on those struggling to make ends meet during this extended lockdown,” says Ankit Mehrotra, co-founder and CEO, Dineout.
“I had read an article about kids eating grass due to the lack of food and the sight of it made me feel miserable. That is when I realised that this pandemic has posed several challenges to us, especially underprivileged and the needy. They are fighting not just against the virus but also against hunger and starvation at the same time. Everyone’s role is crucial and therefore we have to make it count,” says Neeti Goel, owner of Keiba, Mumbai.
Besides, Dineout has initiated an online petition to support NRAI on change.org, requesting the Finance Ministry and the Centre to help restaurants with employee unemployment pay cover, a moratorium on upcoming statutory dues, delay in utility bill payments, holiday/temporary stoppage on EMI payments and interest, freezing rental dues and restoration of Input Tax Credit on GST for all restaurants. The petition has received widespread acknowledgement and has been signed by more than 35,000 people and endorsed by some of the country’s biggest restaurateurs and F&B entrepreneurs.
You too can contribute to Project Thali at https://www.dineout.co.in/