BHUBANESWAR: Amidst the despair, there are Good Samaritans who are trying to bring positivity to people’s lives. City-based techies, Janmejaya Mohapatra and Girish Prasad Sahu, are among those who are ensuring doorstep delivery of grocery, vegetables and medicines to the elderly in this hour of dire need.
Founders of a tech firm, the duo has collaborated with offline retail outlets and a few e-platforms in the city to prioritise the delivery of commodities to people above 60 years of age. And, they don’t make money out of the initiative.
“We just act as facilitators for the elderly customers and connect them to the stores. In most cases, the elderly customers aren’t gadget-friendly. They falter and stop mid-stride,” said Janmejaya.
Using resources of their firm, the duo developed a website www.covid19help.live in a day’s time. Operational since last Monday, the website acts as an interface between elderly people or their children, volunteers and voluntary organisations.
When a person logs in to the website - seeking help for delivery of essentials - he or she is asked to feed in basic information into the database. Next, the firm’s representative calls them up to verify credentials.
“At this stage, we interact with the person to confirm if his or her case is critical. Because we don’t deliver or seek help from our collaborators for other customers. Thereafter, we place their requirements before the stores and prioritize their orders. Sometimes, even we go out for delivery,” said Girish.
An intern, who works for the firm, has been assigned the task of communicating with the callers while the rest works from home on regular software development projects of the firm. So far, the duo claimed to have catered to 80 elderly people. “We facilitate the delivery of two to three persons a day,” he added. Recently, the duo added a new feature to the website to connect migrants or destitute with voluntary organisations.
The website is a blessing for the likes of 34-year-old Bengaluru-based software professional Jitendriya Dash who availed the service recently for helping his 64-year-old parents, residing near Ravi Talkies here.