Amid the nationwide lockdown, bringing food to 80 people living on a tiny island on the Yamuna has been a unique challenge. Food, cooked in a courtyard in Mayur Vihar Phase I, travels via a car, a motorcycle and a boat to reach the islanders, reported The Indian Express.
Residents of Mayur Vihar send food to those on the island once a day. A resident, Virender Sachdeva, packs food in cartons and sends them off in a car that heads to DND flyway. At the mouth of the flyway, Lokesh Sharma, who lives in Shakarpur, takes the carton and rides through 3 km of a muddy track along the Yamuna.
He reaches the end of the track, where Suraj, a fisherman who lives in Yamuna Khadar., waits for him. A 15-minute boat ride later, the food finally reaches residents. After losing their means of livelihood due to the lockdown, the residents are dependent on Sachdeva and his team.
The islanders, who live in tents and small huts, do not have power or LPG connections. Before the lockdown, they would row out to Okhla to get groceries, vegetables and drinking water and cook on mud chulahs using wood. With shops closest to them shut and no income, they have nothing to do but wait. Children who live on the island go to a government school nearby on boats.
Sachdeva first found out about the island a few days after the lockdown, when an acquaintance told him about people in need of food and supplies. He, along with businessman Vijendra Dhama and sweet shop owner Rajiv Kohli, monec
