HYDERABAD: To help those suffering due to the recent Godavari floods, Seva Bharathi, an NGO affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has initiated a campaign to deliver all essentials to 15,000 flood-affected families in four erstwhile districts. Volunteers of the organisation have been working round the clock to source, pack, transport and deliver the supplies at the doorsteps of the flood victims. Over the past couple of days, Seva Bharathi volunteers have surveyed every village in erstwhile Adilabad, Karimnagar, Khammam and Warangal districts by touching every household, recording their urgent needs and estimating the losses.
The organisation has been collecting essential food supplies including rice, pulses, tamarind, cooking oil, salt, red chilli powder, turmeric, jeera, mustard, biscuits, in addition to toiletries, blankets, towels, clothes and so on from donors.In view of the risk of water-borne diseases spreading in the aftermath of the floods, the organisation is also distributing medicines, masks, sanitisers, pulse oximeters, digital thermometers and PPE kits.
“A team of doctors in the organisation has already started touring the flood-ravaged areas. Based on their suggestions, the medicines have been prescribed with specific dosage for possible ailments. Only after the doctors examine the patients and prescribe the medicines will they be administered the medicines,” says C Subramanyam, state secretary, Seva Bharathi.
There are around 200 students from various hostels of RSS in Telangana, who have been working in shifts to pack and load the supplies at Keshav Memorial Junior College at Himayatnagar, from where they will be dispatched. Female volunteers from the Rashtriya Sevika Samiti and male volunteers from other hostels, who are all Intermediate and degree students, have been working tirelessly since Tuesday morning to pack the items.
Collection points have been set up in Mancherial, Chennur, Manthani, Mahadevpur, Tadvai, Venkatapur, Bhadrachalam, Burgampad, Cherla, Manuguru and Aswapuram, where godowns will be used to collect and then dispatch the essentials to remote villages by the volunteers.
“The pack of food items weighing 18 kg with all essential ingredients can help a family of four survive for 10 days. There are many houses which have been inundated, and the people are currently in the process of cleaning them. Meanwhile, they are cooking outside. Some of them have lost their utensils, which we are planning to send. In areas where power has been disrupted, we are also sending matchboxes and candles,” says Subramanyam. Around 5,000 volunteers of Seva Bharathi have been engaged in the relief efforts.