The economic impact of this pandemic has cut across various sectors. The daily wager community, which forms a large part of India’s workforce, is still struggling to arrange food for their family.

To provide a better perspective – only a fourth of the total employable population had jobs in the first week of the lockdown. This means close to 119 million people lost their jobs within the starting week of the lockdown.⁽¹⁾ Workers at construction sites, shops, restaurants, delivery staff and local transport systems, who live on daily or weekly earnings saw their daily source of income come to a sudden halt. Even today as the country opens steadily, the economic situation for these daily wagers continues to be grim with a lot of businesses either shutting down and being scaled back.

With no earnings to sustain their families, and costs of rental and food to cover, this community has been driven to take extreme measures.  From attempting to walk back to their hometown on empty stomachs, to suicides, the news has been full of heart wrenching stories. 

In March, we started ‘Feed the Daily Wager’ to support this community survive through the pandemic. In these two months, we have been able to distribute close to 6 lakh rations kits, facilitating about 6 crore meals thanks to the contribution of thousands of people across the country. Our teams and delivery partners along with our partner NGOs conducted these drives across 145 cities to make sure food was safely distributed to every family.

However, there is still a lot to be done. 

Meals for Migrants

We have started the phase II for our program to help migrants who have been on their journey home with no food or even means to it. Zomato Feeding India is now facilitating meals packs for them. 

Each meal pack costs us ₹50 and contains packed food for one, and a bottle of drinking water. So far, with the help of our volunteer network, we have distributed 23.5K meal packs across Bangalore, Chandigarh, Delhi, Gurgaon and Hyderabad.

How can you help?

At the start of the lockdown, we received overwhelming support from across the country towards ‘Feed the Daily Wager’. Your continued support can help ensure more people reach home safely and in good health. 

You can select an amount that you wish to donate here. 

How will your donations be used?

• We have identified 40+ transit locations across India –  highways, railway stations and bus stops with heavy migrant movement. We are stationing our vans at transit points across several cities which are being used to serve food daily.
• We have also partnered with multiple local NGOs and volunteers for on ground distribution support.
• We will send our contributors a transparency report on how and where their funds were utilized. Everyone who contributed to Feed the Daily Wager program will soon hear from us on how their contributions have been utilized to bring happiness to families in need.

Help us spread the word

Here is a whatsapp message you can copy and share within your network: 

Zomato Feeding India has stationed vans with meal packs at transit points in cities to help migrant workers through their journey home. You can do your bit by donating to ‘Meals for Migrants’ to help ensure more people reach their destination safely and in good health.
Click to donate – https://www.feedingindia.org/donate/mealsformigrants