According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 815 million people in the world don't get the food they need to live a healthy life.

To be a drop in the ocean, a few people have come forward to do their bit when it comes to food, hunger and the hungry.

A former police commissioner, a charted accountant from London and the famed dabbawalas joined hands in Mumbai on Saturday to "wage a fight against hunger" through the "Mumbai Roti Bank" platform.

Next time you have good amount of food left in your kitchen and you don't know what to do with it, then you can just dial 8655580001 or 9111891118.

"People and organisations who have excess food to spare can call up a 24x7 helpline (No: 9111891118 | Website: www.rotibankindia.org) and provide the location from where the excess food has to be picked up. We will do the rest," former Mumbai Police commissioner D Shivanandan said.

Dialing the numbers will bring in a van whihc will collect the food you cannot seem to utilise properly. The company will pass the food on to the people on the streets.

"If there is food available for more than 20 people, then people can call us up and we will pick up the food and distribute it in the hunger pockets," Shweta Mangal, director of MUrgency, the company which runs an emergency service and is supporting the call centre for food as well, said.

This is being done in collaboration with pervasive dabbawalas of Mumbai. The dabbawalas are too known for their own Roti Bank initiative and have been doing something similar like the aforementioned service for the last two years benefiting at least 300 people daily.

The hopeful targets are the parties, restaurants and even school canteens from where the extra food will be picked up and then distributed among the ones who understand hunger better than most of the people.

ROTI BANK

The great initiative has been dubbed as Roti Bank. Dabbawalas in Mumbai have been collecting the leftover food from restaurants and delivering it to those who cannot cut through the day for a decent meal.

A charted accountant from London, Nitin Khanapurkar, with an urge to give back something to the city where he was born, along with former Mumbai Police commissioner D Shivanandan have lent their support to Roti Bank.

Picture Courtesy: Rakesh Salaskar Picture Courtesy: Rakesh Salaskar

Since it has just started, the company has only two vans but with the support of more people which is growing with each passing day, it intends to run more vans.

THE VANS TO STEAL HUNGER

Two dabbawalas will be travelling in the van from 4 pm to 2 am and will collect the food from places willing to give it away.

The timings were devised smartly since soon after lunch and dinner, the chances of the availability of leftover food are higher.

This is being done by volunteers offering free service. "In India, an estimated 20 crore people -- or the entire population of Pakistan -- daily sleep hungry, 3,000 infants die due to malnutrition and hunger every day, but on the other hand, there is huge wastage of food, especially at big events, parties, marriages, etc," Subhash Talekar of the Mumbai Dabbawala Association said.

Talekar said, "There are 5,000 dabbawalas in the city. About 200 used to work on this earlier but we were still not able to get food for the needy. Now, with the vans, we will be able to manage it better and cover a larger area."

"The Mumbai Roti Bank will deploy GPS-tracked vans to collect excess food from restaurants, eateries, clubs, five-star hotels, events, public functions or marriages, besides households, and distribute them to poor, hungry and needy people," Talekar added.

ROTI BANK AND DABBAWALAS

When the dabbawalas in Mumbai started doing their bit to feed the hungry, they mapped the hunger pockets across the city.

For instance, if they knew that there is extra food in Worli area, they picked it up in their van and were quick enough to give it to the people in need of food. These people were often the ones who lived on the pavements of Parel near Tata Hospital.

The Roti Bank is also planning to get hold of some fridges to manage storage better but they prefer to transport fresh food to those who are starving and in desperate need of food.

(With inputs from IANS)