Patiala councillors reach out to the poor with food

Ravneet Singh

Tribune News Service

Patiala, April 5

Several municipal councillors in the city are reaching out to the poor with food and other essential commodities.

While some are providing cooked food to the underprivileged people of their wards, others are providing ration as provided by the Municipal Corporation (MC). Officials in the corporation said the councillors were supposed to provide all information regarding the distribution of ration to the office.

The MC has identified around 34 pockets in the city where residents need government assistance for daily needs. These include Rori Kut muhalla, Teha Basit, Bazigar Basti, Sanjay Colony, Lakkar Mandi area and Ram Nagar among others, majority of which fall under five to seven wards of the city.

Nikhil Batish, councillor of Ward No. 38 said, “Earlier, we were providing ration from our own pockets. Later, the corporation started providing it, which has been distributed among nearly 200 families.”

He said he had made a WhatsApp group to help the needy through which medicines and other necessary commodities were provided to people as per needs.

Atul Joshi, councillor of Ward No. 34, is delivering dry packets of food to the less fortunate people in his ward. “The MC is providing us most of the material. By now, we have distributed packets of dry food comprising rice, refined oil, pulses, salt and other daily needs among more than 150 households in the area. We do not want people to gather at one place for cooked food,” he said.

Harish Nagpal, councillor of Ward No. 32, has been providing cooked food to the needy in colonies in his ward since the imposition of the curfew in the state. He said his team was providing cooked food among over 3,000 people on a daily basis.

Rajinder Pal Sharma, husband of councillor Leela Rani of Ward No. 39, said he was maintaining record of ration distributed among people. “We are providing ration to residents of Dhillon Colony, Sanjay Colony, Sharma Colony and others. We are specially providing food to immigrants and are submitting all record of distribution to the MC.”

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