Initiatives being taken in India by The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) during these challenging times.
As a TATA company, we at IHCL are keenly aware of our responsibility towards our immediate community and the people within it. In 2008, we created the Taj Public Service Welfare Trust (TPSWT) to provide relief and support to victims of natural or man-made disasters. We understand there is an urgent requirement of safe and nutritious food and, together with TPSWT, we are working with local authorities to provide nutritious meals to those in need across the country.
The Taj Public Service Welfare Trust is distributing nutritious meals to medical staff in key hospitals/COVID-19 centers in Mumbai, Bengaluru and New Delhi. The meals are prepared and delivered by TajSats in Mumbai and individual hotels in the other cities. TajSats is an IHCL company and India’s market leader in airline catering.
We have partnered with Chef Sanjeev Kapoor for Mumbai, Bangalore and New Delhi for this initiative. In Mumbai we are working closely with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to offer approximately 10,000 meals a day to medical fraternity at the Kasturba Hospital, The King Edward Memorial Hospital, Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College and General Hospital, Nair Hospital and J J Hospital. 1,73,500 meals will have been delivered by the end of the day today. This initiative, started on March 23, 2020 will continue for the current period of the lockdown till April 14.
We are also distributing meals to medical staff in Victoria Hospital in Bengaluru in partnership with the Taj West End - 3500 meals have been delivered up to today. As of 30th March 2020, we started serving meals at Lady Hardinge Medical College in New Delhi (200 meals). The scope has now widened to include 7 hospitals in New Delhi – these are Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, Lady Hardinge Medical College, Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality H, G B Pant Hospital, Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadyay and Dr. Ambedkar Hospital. Over 16,500 meals have been delivered in New Delhi.
An additional initiative was flagged off on March 31, 2020. In partnership with Tata Sons, TPSWT is providing meals to migrant workers in Mumbai. This is also handled by TajSATS. 5000 meals were delivered the first day,10,000 the second day and 20,000 from the third day onwards. 2,35,000 meals have been delivered till today.
Seven IHCL hotels across the country are offering rooms to the medical fraternity during these challenging times – they are Taj Lands End, Taj Santacruz, The President and Ginger Andheri East in Mumbai, Ginger Madgaon, Ginger City Centre, Noida and Ginger New Delhi Rail Yatri Niwas.
Seven other Ginger hotels across the country are also being used for quarantine purposes – these are one wing of Ginger Bhubaneshwar, Ginger MIDC Andheri, Ginger Faridabad, Ginger Inner Ring Road Bangalore, Ginger Pantnagar in Uttarakhand, Ginger Chennai, Vadapalani and Ginger East Delhi.
Meela Seenarain
Dubai, United Arab Emirates UAE