Satsang Seva Journal

This project was in continuation to a prior project we had done for homebound Sharmik Express passengers in May, where in we had distributed 200 travel packs.   As the last few Shramik Express trains leave with homeward bound migrants, we had contacted both Delhi and Noida Administration and Police to provide us information on the next scheduled departures.  On June 6, Delhi Police apprised us about a Shramik Express train scheduled to depart at 8 pm from Anand Vihar Railway Station the same day.  We swung into action immediately and by 5:30 pm, with 250 packs in hand, we navigated the Noida Delhi sealed border and reached the police station at Anand Vihar Railway Station in New Delhi. Passengers were being bused by the Delhi government to the railway station and with the help of the police, at the bus stand, we distributed 250 packs containing Poha (1/2 kg), Sattu (1/2 kg), Roasted channa (400 mg), Jaggery (250 mg), glucose biscuits (4 packets), juice (2 boxes of Frooti)...

The Delhi Kendra SSM group has distributed dry rations for two weeks to 100 families of cancer patients, COVID patients and patients with Chronic Kidney Disease who have also tested positive for COVID, arriving from all over the country for treatment at the All India Institute for Medical Sciences and the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi over the 10th and 11th of May, 2021.  The families are either mostly living in Dharamshalas near the hospitals or even on pavements outside the hospitals with little or no access to food and essentials, given the curfew orders to contain the pandemic in the city. The distribution was done at the Dharamshalas and the Emergency wards of both hospitals where patients were awaiting treatment. Each dry ration pack contains 5kg Rice, 5 kg Atta, 1 Litre oil, 1 kg sugar, 250 gm tea, 250 gm salt, 2 kg Channa Dal, 100 gm turmeric, 1 Dettol Soap and 1 detergent for washing clothes.

Even as the capital city opens up in phases, migrant labour has started wending their way back from their villages to resume work. The Delhi-NCR SSM group distributed 1 ,500 washable, reusable cloth masks made by self-help groups in Chennai, supported by the TSF Chennai Kendra, to the homeless and destitute across the capital city over the past 10 days. The masks were distributed with the help of the Centre for Holistic Development headed by a Satsangi who helps run night shelters and food kitchens for the homeless and new migrants to the city.

  The Delhi-NCR SSM team was approached by the capital city’s largest tertiary care unit, the Deen Dayal Upadyhaya Hospital, when the pandemic was peaking to help them with supplies of disposable surgical gowns, latex gloves and N-95 masks for the use of their dedicated staff, working round the clock to deal with the influx of patients in COVID times. Dr. Ripudaman Kaur Chawla, Head of Office of the hospital who is also the Assistant Medical Superintendent, requested the team to help supply Personal Protection Equipment for their doctors in the form of : 300 Disposable Surgical Gowns 6000 pieces of latex gloves 1000 N-95 Masks While the Delhi-NCR SSM team were able to source the gloves and good quality disposable surgical gowns at a competitive price in Delhi, help was requested from the Mumbai team to procure the N95 Masks that were not readily available in the capital. Of the 6,000 pieces of gloves, 2,000 came from a donor impressed with SSM work for the medical fraternity.The Mu...

The heavy rains that lashed the capital this monsoon led to the collapse of 15 Jhuggis in Anna Nagar in Central Delhi, rendering 86 of their inhabitants homeless. These included 17 men, 36 women and 33 children. The families could barely escape with their lives as an overflowing drain bore away most of the houses in July. Officials shifted them to a roadside camp opposite the World Health Organisation building near the Income Tax Office on the Outer Ring Road, before moving them into an empty school. An SSM team visited the camp and saw that while food and bare essentials were looked after, the meagre possessions that they had regularly got stolen since they had no storage space. The team managed to procure 12 trunks with locks for the families to safely and dryly keep the documents and belongings that they managed to salvage, even as their petition for housing pended in court, extending their period of uncertainty. The trunks were handed over on the 28th of August with the help of fu...

As Delhi-NCR SSM activities touched week nine and the country entered what was termed the first “Unlock” phase from June 1, the massive churning caused by the COVID 19 Pandemic continued unabated. Cases countrywide hit 247,000, of which Delhi-NCR alone accounted for 27,000. The premier national All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Delhi’s only tertiary care hospital in its heavily populated Eastern district, the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, reached out to the team for Nitrile gloves, 3-Ply Masks and PPE Coveralls. Though difficult to procure because of the heavy demand, the team managed to provide 4,500 pairs of Nitrile gloves and an equal number of 3-Ply Masks to AIIMS and 150 Personal Protection Equipment Coveralls to the GTB Hospital on the 4th of June. In NOIDA and Gurugram, where the team has been distributing dry ration packs for eight weeks now, the demographics of the people served appeared to show a shift. While a lot of the daily wagers and construction labour, u...