December is the follow-up month at TNM where we go back to headlines of the past for a status update. In this series, we strive to bring focus back to promises made by governments, revisit official investigations that should have been completed by now and exhume issues of public interest that lost steam over time.
Only seven of the 35 fridges set up as part of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation’s (GHMC) ‘Feed the Need’ campaign are still functioning, nearly three years after it was launched. TNM checks the status of this food initiative that began well, but largely failed to sustain the initial momentum.
When TNM inquired about how many of the public fridges are still functional, GHMC’s zonal commissioners said that the initiative is no longer active and that there are no details available about the same. While the Secunderabad zonal commissioner said that the fridges were installed before he took over as the zonal commissioner and that he had no details about where they are currently functional, the Charminar zonal commissioner said that the fridges were never installed in his jurisdiction. GHMC’s central office too said that they had no data on how many fridges were functional as it was an “old initiative” which is no longer in focus.
The concept behind ‘Feed the Need’ was introduced to Hyderabad on January 31, 2019. A public fridge was installed in Hyderabad’s Kondapur. The then West Zone zonal commissioner of GHMC, Hari Chandana, was who spearheaded the initiative. The initiative was kicked off through a tie-up between GHMC and Apple Home’s Real Need India Foundation. The Foundation would supply the fridges and GHMC would provide the required space and free power. The former was also to maintain the fridges and ensure that no stale food remained in them.
One of the community fridges when it was inaugurated in 2019
The initiative, which was the first of its kind in Hyderabad, was lauded by citizens. The Minister of Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) KT Rama Rao too had lauded the officer behind the initiative and had called for the same to be replicated across the state. Soon, requests for more public fridges grew and GHMC made arrangements for the public fridges to be set up in several areas for the benefit of the poor and hungry. The concept was that anyone with excess food could deposit it in the fridges while anyone in need of food could simply take it from the fridge. There would be no questions asked and no payment required.
Six months after the initiative was launched, on July 19, 2019, Hari Chandana tweeted that the refrigerators had catered to nearly one lakh people. Soon, a ‘Feed the Need’ app was launched to bridge the gap between volunteers who wanted to donate food and the city’s hungry. The then GHMC commissioner had appealed to the people to use the app to feed the hungry with surplus food from parties and gatherings.
Speaking to TNM, Apple Home Real Need India Foundation’s spokesperson revealed that only seven public fridges are still functional in Hyderabad. “We had set up 35 public fridges in Hyderabad. Following its success, the same was implemented in five districts across Telangana. Today, only seven fridges are functioning in Hyderabad and two in Siddipet.”
“In most places, power supply was interrupted during the pandemic and then it was never restored. Around 10 of the public fridges were stolen by miscreants. Each of these fridges were of 500 litres capacity, was from Blue Star and cost around Rs 1.5 lakh. The fridges were customised as we required those that would not heat too much as they were to be set up on the roads,” the Foundation’s spokesperson added.
While the community fridges are "missing" at some locations, the fridges are no more in use at many other locations
Apple Foundation said that the initiative had helped connect those with surplus food and those in need of the same. “If GHMC agrees to provide us power we are still ready to re-initiate in all the areas where it was stopped,” said the foundation’s spokesperson.
Speaking to TNM, Hyderabad-based activist Harish Daga demanded that the GHMC step in and do the needful to ensure that the remaining fridges are put to good use. "The community fridges initiative was a good idea but the GHMC failed to ensure that the initiative continued. Today, the few fridges that remain are in pitiable conditions. Rather than letting them rust and eventually scrap them, I demand that the GHMC repairs the remaining fridges and shift them to government hospitals or schools where it can be used by students and patients.”
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