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Last year, Kerala opened the Nanma Maram, translating to ‘Tree of Goodness’, a community refrigerator. Located right outside a restaurant in Kochi, this refrigerator is open to everyone and holds food that people have bought for the refrigerator and, more popularly, left-over food from the residents of Kochi’s homes. This initiative is the perfect way of ensuring minimal wastage of food as well as feeding many that would otherwise go hungry. Soon after, Bombay followed suit, first in Versova and then in Oshiwara, followed by Gurgaon and now, it’s Kolkata’s turn.
Sanjha Chulha, a restaurant on CIT Road in Kolkata, has taken a giant stride towards progressive and needful thinking by setting up a one-of-its-kind food ATM in the city. A large refrigerator has been installed outside the restaurant premises, leaving its doors metaphorically open to anyone who wishes to donate food to people in need. The decision to set up this food ATM was taken as part of a ‘Hunger Free Kolkata’ initiative in partnership with P.R.A.N. according to a report by India Times. They also claim that The refrigerator comes with a camera to keep a track of the storage capacity. This helps people gauge the available capacity of the fridge before they donate. You are encouraged to leave your left overs from the restaurant itself, as well as anything from your home fridges that would otherwise be thrown in the bin.
We called the restaurant up to check on how their initiative was going since its inauguration on August 15. We were told that while they hadn’t counted the number of people who had been to the fridge, the first few days had seen the fridge emptied out by the end of the day – a most promising sign indeed. We can only hope that more establishments follow suit, paving the path towards a hunger-free India at large.
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