Thiruvananthapuram: An NGO based in Coimbatore which has been on a crusade to stop the enormous amount of food being wasted by people is starting its initiative in Kerala too.
Padmanaban Gopalan, 24, the brain behind 'No Food Waste', met chief secretary Nalini Netto and presented his plan.
As a first step, Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam districts will be covered under this unique initiative as several tonnes of food are being wasted at marriage halls almost every day.
Mr Gopalan who had graduated in production engineering from Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, in 2014, used to take motivational classes on the demerits of wasting food among students of various schools in Coimbatore.
On one such occasion, he was accosted by a kindergarten girl belonging to PSG Krishnammal Nursery School on what he would do if he gets large quantities of food. This set him thinking and thus was born ‘No Food Waste’ in 2014.
“Already, NFW is actively working in eight districts in Tamil Nadu, East Godavari in Andhra Pradesh and also a chapter in New Delhi. Our NGO has been able to provide more than 600 plates of food every day on an average basis in these cities where food is collected from marriage halls and corporate canteens and IT park cafeterias,” said Padmanabhan.
CEO of Niti Aayog, Amitabh Kant, launched the national venture of NFW at Constitution Club of India last week.
The meeting with Nalini Netto happened on Wednesday evening at her chamber in Secretariat where she has offered the State Government’s help in providing infrastructures like space and vehicles.
The initial understanding is that depending on the success NFW achieves in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi, other cities in the State would be eventually added.
Currently, Padmanabhan is looking for local volunteers in both these cities to do a survey on hunger mapping. There is a centralised helpline number – 9087790877 where people who have unused food can inform the volunteers of NFW, once it is launched in the state within a week.
