Women serve meals to the needy at Rs 10 per person
To help the needy does not take much of an effort is well described by a group of 10 women who provide meals to the needy everyday. A sufficient healthy meal for Rs 10 is served daily from 11 am to 1 pm at Raj Roti Centre at Matunga.
Interestingly, these women are not social workers but housewives and professionals who dedicate their time once a week and work in rotation at this centre.
The women are residents of Wadala and Matunga area and have been serving food at their two centres at Borivali and Mulund. They continue this voluntary work for all 365 days of the year as they take turns and dedicate some part of their time to feed the needy.
The group of women also have different professional backgrounds like founder Meena Goshkar is a Homoeopathic consultant doctor while Swati Kamdar is a baker. Hira Shah also a part of this group has her own studio and Parul Kanakia is a teacher for special children.
On a daily basis, the women cater to around 40 people at their Matunga centre. The well-wrapped meal includes six rotis, vegetable and a banana which is prepared by a cook who delivers this food at the centre. Swati Kamdar, said, "We take turns to ensure that one of us is present at the centre everyday. The food is a basic meal and it is encouraging to see that the number of people visiting our centre has increased since the time we started."
This centre was started in May 2016 and for the first three months the food was provided for Rs 5. "We had informed the people in the first month itself that we will later charge Rs 10 for the meals. The people to whom we serve food are those with monthly income between Rs 5000 to Rs 7000 or less than that. They can easily afford this meal," Kamdar added.
The centre aims to cater to those people who do not have the privilege of eating homecooked meals everyday. A visitor who bought the meal from the centre said, "I do not get a healthy home cooked meal at Rs 10 in the hotel so I prefer eating at this centre. I am involved in outdoor labour work so I cannot afford to eat outside always with my low income."
Meena Goshkar, the founder of this centre, told the Free Press Journal, "Our aim is to have many more centres in different pockets of the city so that we can cater to a large number of people. Our families and donors have been very supportive as this centre completely runs on donations." In order to run the centre, the women donated their own money at the start and now have shifted to donations. "We chipped a little of our money at the start as we knew that the cause was good. Now we have grown to a level where people come voluntarily and donate," Kamdar added.