INDIA’S FILM BIGGIES HELP with funds, medical supplies and food
Actors come together to relieve workers amid COVID-19 pandemic
MUMBAI: From Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Amitabh Bachchan, India's film stars are stepping forward to do their bit for migrants, daily wage workers and those from their own industry facing joblessness and near starvation in an unprecedented pan-india lockdown.
As COVID-19 spreads, band of stars, filmmakers and musicians and among others are making contributions of money, food and medical supplies and in some cases, offering their properties for use as quarantine centres.
Amitabh Bachchan pledged monthly rations to support 1,00,000 households of daily wage workers, including spot boys and makeup artists, belonging to the ‘All India Film Employees Confederation' (AIFEC). The initiative is supported by ‘Sony Pictures Networks India' and ‘Kalyan Jewellers'.
Salman Khan was one of the earliest celebrities to understand that lack of shootings will render many jobless. He pledged to directly help 25,000 daily wage artistes of ‘FWICE' every month through his ‘Being Human Foundation'. He also asked fans to donate food to the needy and was seen loading ration packets in tractors and bullock carts to be sent to villages near his Panvel farmhouse, where he has been since the lockdown started on March 25.
Shah Rukh Khan went a step further by announcing a series of initiatives with his wife Gauri Khan and his business partners besides donating in the ‘PM-CARES' fund through his and actor Juhi Chawla's ‘Indian Premiere League' (IPL) franchise ‘Kolkata Knight Riders'.
Their package' of relief includes contributing personal protective equipment' (PPE) for frontline health workers, daily food for 5,500 families in Mumbai, meal kits for 10,000 people per day, and essentials for 2,500 daily-wage workers as well as basic essentials and groceries to 2,500 workers in the national capital.
Akshay Kumar donated Rs 25 crore to the ‘PM-CARES' fund to help fight the virus in March apart from Rs 2 crore contribution to Mumbai Police and other charity contributions.
Other who donated to Prime
Minister Narendra Modi's ‘PMCARES' fund include Vicky Kaushal, Karan Johar, Priyanka Chopra and among others.
Hrithik Roshan, Vidya Balan, Farhan Akhtar, Sonu Sood and Sonakshi Sinha are among the people who have given money for PPE kits and food for healthcare professionals and other healthcare workers.
Sonu offered his hotel in the city for healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses and the paramedical staff to stay. He also had been delivering meals to the underprivileged in Mumbai.
Troubled by images of lakhs of migrant labourers making their way to their homes on foot with little or no food, the actor decided to help them reach home, for which he facilitated several buses for hundreds of workers stranded in Mumbai so they could return to their homes in states such as Karnataka, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.