A novel way of feeding the hungry and destitute has emerged in a city in Uttar Pradesh state. Mahoba, located 550 kilometres southeast of New Delhi, is at the heart of Bundelkhand, a region in central India that has endured severe droughts, starvation deaths and malnutrition for several years.
A group of around three dozen men, led by Haji Muttan and Tara Patkar, has been running a "Roti Bank" since April, feeding on average around 450 men, women and children every day.
"Nobody should go hungry, nobody should sleep on an empty stomach" is the motto of the group, which works with the local NGO Bundeli Samaj to collect roti and cooked vegetables from households in the evening and then distribute them to the poor, homeless and hungry.
"We feed on an average 450 people every evening. This is our way of doing something for our society," said Mr Patkar, 46, a former journalist who quit his job in January 2014 to become a full-time social activist and convenor of Bundeli Samaj. He oversees the unloading of food packets collected in large cotton bags from households in different parts of Mahoba, a municipality of 125,000 people.
Comprising 13 districts and straddling the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, Bundelkhand has been battling a scarcity of rain and food grains for several years. In 2009, the central government extended US$1 billion in aid to rehabilitate water bodies and develop irrigation projects to mitigate the effects of successive droughts.
The failure of agriculture and an acute shortage of drinking water in Bundelkhand forced thousands of people to seek jobs farther away in cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Gurgaon and Noida.
According to a survey done in November by Swaraj Abhiyan, a self-rule advocacy group led by Delhi politician Yogendra Yadav, in collaboration with economist Jean Drèze, the region witnessed over 100 deaths due to hunger and malnutrition in the eight months between April and November. Rainfall that was only 50% of normal levels led to stunted growth of wheat, cereals, pulses and green fodder for cattle. In around half the districts of the region including Mahoba, the rain deficiency was 60%.
The idea of feeding the destitute, took shape in April when Mr Muttan joined forces with Mr Patkar, Ajay Barsaiyan, the general secretary of Bundeli Samaj, and a few other volunteers.
"On day one we fed five people. A fortnight later the number rose to 60 after people started contributing food to us," said Mr Muttan, who is also the president of Bundeli Samaj.
In June last year, the friends came up with the name Roti Bank for their venture. The inspiration came in part from the Ram naam (name) bank in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, where people are asked to write the name of the Hindu god on a piece of paper as many times as they want and then are issued a "deposit slip" for that number of offerings.
"Ram Bank is a very novel concept. It even has a branch in London. We named our initiative Roti Bank after this," Mr Patkar told Asia Focus.
Roti Bank donors to fold rotis in newspaper, pack vegetables in small plastic bags and drop them in large jute sacks carried by the volunteers. Soon the group plans to replace plastic bags and paper with tiffin boxes. It has already bought 200 steel tiffin boxes and is now working out the best way to distribute food in them, get them cleaned and recirculated. Mr Patkar said the NGO was also considering placing large food collection boxes outside popular shops in busy markets.
It is also working on extending its Roti Bank initiative to other districts of Bundelkhand. "We have already extended the scheme to a couple of villages neighbouring Mahoba city and are deliberating with our friends in Banda, Lalitpur, Orai and other cities adjoining Mahoba," said Mr Patkar.
The majority of the Roti Bank beneficiaries are roadside beggars, the mentally ill, seniors abandoned by their families, widows and orphaned children, and others who are unable to work because of accidents.
"Ninety percent of the people who we cater to are seniors residing in government colonies set up in four parts of the city," said Haji Muttan as he fed Ram Prasad, a destitute man residing alone in a flat in one of the Kanshi Ram Colonies.
Ashok Kumar Soni, an elderly man who said he was abandoned by his wife and three sons, has benefitted from the Roti Bank since July. "My wife and sons live separately from me and never bother about me. Roti Bank sustains me now," he said.
Bundeli Samaj maintains records of all its beneficiaries in Mahoba. It has divided the city into six zones, each comprising about 75 beneficiaries. On an average its volunteers collect food from around 700 households every evening. The food left over after providing for the poor is fed to cows in the city.
Besides running Roti Bank, Bundeli Samaj is working on rehabilitating water bodies in and around Mahoba. It is currently restoring a pond near Mahoba by increasing its catchment area.
Since February, it has also been campaigning to set up a central health institute in Mahoba on the pattern of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), arguably the country's best hospital located in New Delhi. Mr Patkar has been walking barefoot since September last year to press his demand for the AIIMS.
As a part of its campaign, Bundeli Samaj mailed 150,000 postcards in 18 languages to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014. Female students in Mahoba sent 5,100 rakhis to the prime minister to mark the Hindu festival Raksha Bandhan. (A sister ties a rakhi thread on her brother's wrist, symbolising a pledge that he will always protect her).
Rakhis were also sent to all other ministers and opposition leaders in New Delhi and state ministers in Uttar Pradesh. The group has also organised candlelight marches and written congratulatory messages on a 65-metre-long cloth for Mr Modi's 65th birthday on Sept 17 last year to keep up its profile.
Mr Patkar said there would be no better place than Mahoba for setting up the AIIMS as Bundelkhand is in the heart of India and Mahoba forms the heart of Bundelkhand.