New Delhi, 17 June 2020: With a focus towards supporting relief operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, Coca-Cola has partnered with CARE India to provide immediate food security and other essentials to underprivileged and vulnerable groups. Through the initiative, the company will provide dry-ration kits with meticulously curated food items to meet specific nutritional needs of various marginalized groups such as migrant workers, daily wage earners and people living with HIV/AIDS across various parts of the country.
The three-month long programme aims to benefit over 1.5 lakh people starting from the month of June. This initiative is a part of Coca-Cola’s commitment of INR 100 crores towards various COVID-19 relief programmes meant to benefit and positively impact over 10 lakh lives across the country.
The programme will be rolled out across Delhi & NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar and West Bengal to distribute dry ration amongst people with meagre resources and affected by food crises. The ration kits include many essentials including wheat flour, rice, pulse, cooking oil, spices, sugar, salt, soy chunks, poha, peanuts, protein powder, milk powder and soap bars.
Due consideration has been given to meet nutritional requirements of women and girls, and especially vulnerable groups such as people living with HIV/AIDS to help them deal better with these challenging times, says the statement issued by the company.
Commenting on the initiative, Ishteyaque Amjad, Vice-President, Public Affairs, Communications & Sustainability, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia said, "We hope that our joint efforts help assuage the state of the most vulnerable people of our society and that through our collective efforts as a country, we will be able to steer ourselves out of these testing times."
Manoj Gopalakrishna, Chief Executive Officer, CARE India said, "The nationwide lockdown for fighting COVID-19 has disproportionately affected the poorest and marginalised population in our country. In these difficult times we need to ensure that they have access to high quality nutritious food to overcome the challenges posed by this pandemic and provide them with necessary support."
