Coronavirus Lockdown | Swiggy plans to serve 5 lakh meals daily to the needy

Food delivery platform Swiggy on Thursday said it has tied up with commercial kitchens, NGOs and state governments to provide a daily meal to thousands of underprivileged, daily wagers and stranded migrant labourers during the 21-day lockdown.

Having served over 2,50,000 meals so far, Swiggy is in the process of crowdsourcing funds from corporates and individuals in order to scale the initiative. The goal is to serve 5,00,000 meals daily, the company said in a statement.

On the ‘Hope, Not Hunger' initiative by the company, Swiggy CEO Sriharsha Majety said these are challenging times for the service industry including the food sector.

"There are restaurants that run the very real risk of shutting down permanently due to lack of business. Considering the nature of our business, we are in a unique place to contribute by making something as essential as food available to the needy while providing business opportunities for our restaurant and kitchen partners, so that we can together make it through to the other end of this crisis," he added.

The initiative was launched in Delhi and has been scaled to Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Gurugram, Chennai and Kolkata. The company said it plans to scale the initiative to other parts of the country.