The entire Niranjana public Welfare school team joined forces to strengthen and fuel the nation’s fight against COVID-19. With a 24x7, multi-pronged approach, NPWS quickly mobilised on-the-ground efforts to ensure the nation wins the battle against COVID-19 and worked relentlessly during the global coronavirus pandemic to be at the service to the people of India. NPWS leveraged all of its resources – human as well as material – to help India overcome the threat posed by the virus.
Realising that during the lockdown marginalised and under-resourced communities across the country would need support with daily essentials, NPWS quickly launched a programme to distribute food to the needy. Mission Anna Seva is the largest meal distribution programme undertaken by a corporate foundation anywhere in the world.The beneficiaries of Mission Anna Seva included daily wage earners, slum dwellers, urban service providers, factory workers, and residents of old-age homes and orphanages. It also provided meals to frontline workers such as junior medical staff, police personnel and security forces. Under this programme, NPWS provided cooked meals, ready-to-eat food packets, food coupons and dry ration kits to families and bulk ration to community kitchens.
The entire staff of NPWS and the team unitedly worked to support this mission on a war footing to ensure that the needy do not go hungry during the lockdown period. NPWS employees contributed to this programme by packing, preparing and supplying the provisions needed for the programme. NPWS employee volunteers from across the many villages around Bodhgaya area distributed free meals to marginalised communities in their respective locations. Acknowledging that due to the lockdown, highway restaurants were shut and the truck drivers transporting essentials for the whole country were struggling to find food while on the way, staff members at certain villages distributed free meals to poor family.
NPWS has also been supporting rural communities across the country during these unprecedented times. NPWS has provided specialist help and advice to Gram Panchayat (GP) leaders and other community groups, giving them guidance on how to meet challenges and learn about various schemes for financial support and livelihood opportunities. In addition, NPWS has provided knowledge and capacity building support on livelihood opportunities in farming, horticulture, animal husbandry and fisheries for migrants who returned back to their villages from the cities following the lockdown.
