Case Study 1 - Kovil Palayam - Coimbatore

My name is Paddy Padmanabhan.(+91-94498-55201). I live in Bangalore.  Here is a simple case study, where I explain how to provide corona relief (grocery) to migrant labourers, without leaving home.

Date: 17^th Apr 2020

I decided to help and wanted to locate deserving beneficiaries. In the process of locating beneficiaries, I spoke to my friend Balu.  He has a small factory in Coimbatore, manufacturing welding rods.  I asked him if he had any migrant labourer(s) working in his factory and if he can introduce me to that person/people. He agreed. He gave me the phone number of a person by name Biju (+91 86670 57713).

I spoke to Biju and asked him about people living with him and about his friends. Biju told me about some of his friends who were in trouble. I requested him to send me the contact details of those friends. I told him that it would work better if those friends sent me WhatsApp messages with their names and contact details.

I received a WhatsApp Message. See image below.

 

WhatsApp Text below the above image read

Jagan. Tuku. Dhuna           . Biju

It was about 7:30 pm, Indian Standard Time when I received the above image.  I called up +91-86677-33751 and spoke with Jagan. Then I asked him to locate a nearby grocery shop and get me the contact details of the person who owns/runs the shop. Jagan shared the contact details of the shop owner +91 99942 02908. I called up the shop owner and spoke with  him in Tamil. The shop owner’s name is Roosevelt. The shop’s name is Shobana stores. I told him that I wanted to help those 3 boys (Jagan, Tiku and Dhuna) by paying for their grocery purchase. I asked if I could do a bank transfer. He told me that it was possible and that he would carry out the sale the next morning as the shop was closed as per prohibitary orders. He sent me his bank account details. The next morning the boys went to the shop at 10:30 AM. The boys prepared a list of grocery items that they needed. See image of the “hand bill” below.

I transferred Rs. 700 to Mr. Roosevelt. See online banking transaction details below.

We have managed to distribute relief material worth  Rs 1.8 lakh (Rupees One Lakh Eighty Thousand Only) using various permutations and combinations of the above process. We have made a choice to give Rs. 700 (Rupees seven hundred only) worth of grocery to every group of 3 people. By this calculation, I have covered more than seven hundred people.

See below the picture of the items they purchased.

Please find below the picture of those three boys and their contact details.

These boys are from Orissa.

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Distributing Relief Material - 24th Apr 2020

Date	24th Apr 2020
Place	Rithu Medics, TVS Nagar, Coimbatore – 25
Amount in Rs. Spent	Rs. 30,900 (Rupeed Thirty Thousand Nine Hundred Only)
Vendor	Rangaswamy Chettiar Sons & Co
Volunteers who participated	Elango, Paddy Padmanabhan (on phone), Suresh, Suresh Jain, Subhash.
Vendor Receipt
Payment
Recepients

Photos

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About this Initative - Why migrant laborers ?

Migrant laborers form a significant part of unorganized labor force in India.

·         One of the most affected people in this time (April 2020) of pandemic.

·         The poorest among the poor people in an industrial city like Coimbatore.

·         They don't get benefits provided by the public distribution system.

·         Many of them are daily wage laborers. 

The rationale for reaching out to migrant workers

·         Small companies are helpless

Coimbatore’s economy is built by the numerous small and medium industries in the past few decades.  During the last decade, the migrant workers have been a bonus to these industries. Most of these laborers hail from states in north India and north eastern India. In the current scenario of lockdown, the MSMEs are also strongly hit economically. So they are in no position to help to these migrant workers.

·         What about government support?

A detailed independent report in the The Hindu (Apr 20/21) revealed the fact that 96% of the migrant workers did not receive any rations or freebies from the government. The local political parties see no apparent gain or mileage by helping migrant laborers. Migrant laborers do not get to vote in the places where they work.  So they are completely orphaned in terms of authorities’ support.

·         And what more?

The poor and exploited people starving in large numbers is not only a humanitarian situation, it is also a potentially explosive situation. There have been instances in places like Mumbai and Surat, Gujarat where migrant laborers came to the streets in thousands, asking the government to make arrangement to help them go back to their homes in north India. This is not only a very small spark of social unrest, but also a huge setback in our fight against Corona and enforcing physical / social distancing among general public.

Given these reasons, it is important that middle class, upper middle class and upper class people of India and of Indian origin contribute whatever available resources they have, to reach out to migrant laborers who are in dire need of help. The technique explained here in this blog avoids intermediaries and ensures delivery to the needy.

If any reader has read this post this far, then he/she is likely to want to help these people. The reader may have so many questions, like the following.

1. How to locate these people?
2. How to physically deliver it to them without compromising physical/social distancing?
3. Providing grocery or providing cooked food? Which is better?

This blog is aimed at providing answers to the above questions and more. It is also aimed at documenting the work that I have done, which may help someone else in future.

Techniques devised - Remote Distribution of Relief Material

Remote Distribution of Relief Material (RDRM). Using RDRM, I am able to help people in various part of Coimbatore in spite of being physically located in Bangalore, India.

Good number of case studies and quite a few photographs of migrant laborers receiving help can be found here in this blog.

The team driving this

Financial contribution

·         Mostly my college mates  from PSG Tech 83-87, their friends and family

Execution of the plan

·         Tamil medium high school mates from Kikani

·         Childhood friends from Coimbatore.

·         Some of my childhood neighbors from Ramalingam Colony, Coimbatore

·         And many more

Some traditional relief material distribution techniques have also been put to use, after adapting them to Corona imposed physical/social distancing constraints.

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