The German consulate in the city has tied up with two local outfits to provide food to the hungry and protective gear to frontline workers.

On Thursday morning, German deputy consul general Jurgen Thomas Schrod was at Punjabee Bradree in Ballygunge where the day’s lunch was being cooked in the kitchen. In the hall on the ground floor, tables were laid out in rows.

Volunteers first placed butter paper sheets, putting four rotis and alu sabzi on each, then another batch wrapped them to be placed in containers, to meet the requisitions of 20 police stations. As the clock ticked on, men in uniform walked in to collect the lunch boxes to be distributed among the unfed.

“We started work on the first day of the lockdown. While we could feed 180 mouths on Day 1, today we have scaled up to 15,000,” said Pankaj Maloo, of Active Citizens Together for Sustainability (ACTS).

The consulate on Tuesday signed a contract with the NGO Switch On Foundation and the forum ACTS.

“Our grant of about Euro 8,500 is for three kinds of action — providing food ration to the needy, distributing masks to the police, and face guards, sanitisers and gloves to frontline workers,” said Schrod.

“We provide kitchen and manpower. The police are helping with the distribution,” said Ashok Arora, general secretary of Punjabee Bradree.

Twenty police stations are picking up the packets, with Port requiring the highest number — 500. Next are Lake and Kalighat police stations, requiring 300 packets.

Among the beneficiaries was a group of 25 huddled under the AJC Bose Road flyover. “We are rag-pickers. Some of us work as sweepers. Now we have no work. These people give us food everyday,” smiled a woman with matted locks as the police made them queue up maintaining social distancing for distribution.