NEW DELHI: While the Covid-19 nationwide lockdown has forced people to stay inside their homes, the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee (DSGMC) has ramped up one of its mega kitchens here to prepare food for over 40,000 needy people across the city.
The DSGMC has prepared the Gurudwara Bangla Sahib kitchen to provide food to thousands of people every day in the national capital.
Speaking to IANS, Harbir Singh, in charge of the langar in the Gurudwara Bangla Sahib said, “We are providing food to over 40,000 people every day through our kitchen.” Everyday 40 people prepare the food, while 20 more uploads and channelize them.
He said the Gurudwara kitchen is following all the precautions like social distancing protocol while preparing food and all the people involved in the kitchen are asked to sanitise their hands properly before entering the kitchen area.
Singh further said that the work to start the preparation of food starts everyday at 5 a.m. and by 11 a.m. the food for the afternoon is prepared. “While the dinner for people across the city is prepared by 6 p.m. and work for same starts around 1 p.m. after cleaning the kitchen,” he said. The food is collected from the Gurudwara by the concerned officials of the Delhi government.
He said, food for around 20,000 people is sent for the lunch and for the same number dinner is also sent. Singh said that the food includes rice, bread, sanji, dal and prasada, which aree prepared by the base kitchen. When asked if the Gurudwara has enough supply of the rice, wheat flour and vegetables, he said, “The stock with us can easily feed people till the lockdown period. And, besides the ration available with us, we are also ensuring to procure more ration in case requirement arises.”
He further said that in the last 12 days, the Bangla Sahib Gurudwara has served food to over 4.5 lakh people. Singh also explained that the Gurudwara kitchen also has an automatic bread machine, which prepares bread for the people.
“The automatic machine available with us is capable of preparing bread from 1.5 quintal of wheat flour every hour, which minimises the number of people involved in preparing the bread,” he said, adding that only five people are required to collect the bread and prepare the wheat flour for the machine.
Singh said that during the normal times, the Gurudwara is able to serve food to over 60,000 to one lakh people on daily basis, but due to the lockdown the capacity has gone down as very less number of people have been pressed into the service keeping in mind the government’s procedures of maintaining social distancing to stop the spread of Covid-19.
On Monday, India recorded 4,067 cases with 109 deaths across the country. The Delhi government has converted the schools into shelter camps in several areas for the homeless and migrants and is serving food to them twice a day.
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