How an app by Karnataka govt, Swiggy provides 1.7 lakh meals to migrant workers in Bengaluru
1 min read . Updated: 08 Apr 2020, 10:39 PM IST
PremiumThe initiative is part of a long list of technological interventions used by the state government in the virus fight
BENGALURU : Food aggregator Swiggy and others, through a crowdsourced model, have helped the Karnataka government develop an app to deliver almost 1 million meals to the needy in and around Bengaluru since 1 April.
Dasoha 2020 has been key to the state government’s initiative to feed 170,000 people twice a day. The beneficiaries include families of construction workers and labourers, who have been forced to stay indoors with no work or money since the 21-day lockdown was imposed to contain the spread of covid-19.
“On Tuesday, 170,000 meals were delivered to around 85,000 people," said a state government official overseeing the food delivery operations, requesting anonymity.
Swiggy said it has partnered with the Karnataka government, and Amazon Web Services has helped in providing cloud services and its platform for running the app.
“A small team of passionate engineers at Swiggy volunteered their time to automate the entire supply chain, starting with dashboards to track incoming requests, managing inventory projections for food centres and building the Covid Volunteers App to help with last-mile distribution of food to the needy," said Dale Vaz, head, engineering and data science, Swiggy.
The initiative is part of a long list of technological interventions used by the state government to help distribute food, fight fake news, raise an army of volunteers to disseminate verified information about the covid-19 situation.
“All one has to do is call 155214 and the receiver will take down the person’s name, phone number, address and other details, including the number of family members, to avail of the service," the official added.
Software exporter Wipro contributes 60,000 meals a day, Sri Sri Ravishankar-led Art of Living and SNK group contribute about 20,000 meals each, while the remaining is paid for by the government. The state has launched a similar system to deliver dry rations as well.
