Youths and residents of Fatak area of Gopalmal, Budharaja, have come forward to serve the people in distress, particularly in terms of providing food to the hungry ones.

Since the place is almost on the Sambalpur road railway station many strangers are seen here every day.

Due to closure of rail and road services, many labourers could not return their homes and have stayed put there. Mainly public places are their place of living. Temporary shades in totally shabby conditions are homes for daily labourers of outside. And now there is none to feed these people or look after here.

Most pathetic is that they don’t have any address in any part of the country.  A shed (home) over their head is also a dream. And this came to the notice of the youths of the Maa Mahamaya Shop Owners’ Association, Fatak, who are both shopkeepers and residents of the Fatak area and they started a ‘charity canteen’ for these needy people.

“At the same time, we have also added the daily labourers from other parts of the States and Murshidabad district of West Bengal in particular who are passing through utter hard days for lack of food. This is time to help people in distress, we shouldn’t always depend on the overnment,” said Bikash Panda, the owner of the Tulsi Stores, Fatak and one of the key persons of this youth group.

“Labourers from Murshidabad (WB) are mainly from other religion. But we have no such negative consideration in our mind at this juncture,” added the members. “We are providing both lunch and dinner to them,” they said.

“In order to maintain social distance and follow the instructions of the Government, we are not allowing these people to sit and eat. We are packing food and distributing them to 300 people everyday of whom we have prepared a list. They are coming in very disciplined manner and taking cooked food pockets. Really, it is great pleasure for us to feed the hungry people,” said another youth Jayalal Meher, the owner of the Meher Bastralaya in Fatak.

"Further, we are also giving food to the strangers whom we see at the spot,” said Munu Bani, another organiser of the charitable work. “We will continue till this problem is over. We will never allow anyone to go to bed in empty stomach in our area,”  said  secretary of the association Harshad Sahu.