KOCHI: Amid the lockdown, people have been exploring interesting ways to help the state government tide over the crisis and fight the spread of Covid-19. An initiative titled ‘Biriyani Challenge’ under the aegis of All India Youth Federation (AIYF) in Alappuzha has been a big hit that helped the youth wing of CPI raise over Rs 4.8 lakh for the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF) in just a month.
In fact, the food delivery model developed through a network of youngsters at each ward making use of Facebook has made the initiative a big success for its prompt delivery of chicken biriyani at the doorsteps. “We launched the initiative to make use of the lockdown period to raise money for CMDRF. In Alappuzha, we launched the challenge to serve chicken biriyani at Rs 100 in Cherthala and Ambalappuzha first before expanding it to other places. A social media campaign was launched for the same requesting people to order chicken biriyani which will be delivered at their doorstep,” AIYF joint state secretary P S M Hussain told The New Indian Express.
As per the initiative, groups of youths who volunteered to join the initiative were asked to conduct a social media campaign to get orders for biriyani which will be served on specific days. Each local group was tasked to find a good chef in their locality to prepare the dish.
“Once we receive orders through Facebook, the food is prepared at specific locations and delivered at a specified time. We are planning to expand the challenge to other parts of the state. We have been able to serve around 10,000 parcels. We hope to raise more funds for CMDRF through this,” he said.
Students Federation of India (SFI), the student's wing of CPM is also into a similar initiative called ‘Biriyani Fest’ at Kozhenchery to raise money for CMDRF. “We are launching our first fest on Friday and there has been tremendous response from the people. We targeted 200 orders but now we have received 500 orders for a biriyani priced at Rs 150. We will be offering similar initiatives to amass fund for CMDRF,” said Kozhencherry SFI area committee secretary Sachin Sajeev.