To begin with, the Quarantine Student-Youth Network (QSYN) started distributing ration kits its to the not-so-privileged families in different pockets of Calcutta. This was within a few days of the lockdown announcement in March. QSYN started as a network of students — present and past — of various educational institutions in the city such as Presidency University, Jadavpur University and Calcutta University. “When the lockdown started, we felt that apart from maintaining physical distance it is important that we have some sense of social solidarity,” says Ahan

Karmakar, a student of economics at Presidency. Adds Manmatha Roy, an ex-student of Jadavpur University and a current student of the Indian Statistical Institute, “We decided to come together and form networks in our respective neighbourhoods to identify those people in need of assistance at this time.”

By the middle of April, QSYN had expanded its network to cover 19 districts in the state and three cities outside West Bengal — Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad.

The ration kits distributed by QSYN are for people who do not have the resources to buy basic necessities. These are also those who have not had adequate help from the government public distribution system. Apart from rations, QSYN has also distributed hand sanitisers, face masks and sanitary napkins.

Among other things, QSYN has set up 20 kitchens — called People’s Kitchens — all over Calcutta and its suburbs. Students and local people are cooking food. Says Ahan, “The kitchen in Barasat, North 24-Parganas, has been serving around 400 people every day for the last 21 days. The one in Bhangore, South 24-Parganas, has been serving 300 people for the last 11 days. Most of the people we are reaching through these initiatives are migrant labourers who had come from interior Bengal and Bihar. They could not travel back to their homes and have no money to sustain themselves during this lockdown.”

Debojit Thakur, a PhD student of Karl Marx University of Trier, Germany, has been in Delhi the last eight months. He has been managing the operations of QSYN outside Bengal. Says the former student of Presidency, “We got a call in the beginning of the lockdown to say there were 220 people in south Delhi’s Hauz Rani and 550 people in Shahpur Jat who needed food. The first two days I connected these people to the local administration so that they could get prepared food.”

Thereafter, Debojit and his friends decided to do the procuring and distribution themselves instead of battling red tape. Thus far they have been able to cater to 5,000 migrants and vulnerable people across Delhi.

Currently, QSYN has more than 500 members across India. Says Ahan, “We could extend our network beyond Calcutta-based educational institutions. We have also provided food kits to 80 families of Relling and Chonthong in Darjeeling. This was possible only because of the new friends we made through social media.”

The group has found a lot of support on ground too. Manmatha says, “Perhaps because we are students, we received a lot of goodwill and cooperation from locals. People, a large number of whom were in requirement of assistance themselves, have opted to help us by cooking, arranging transport and other logistics for little or no cost.”

He adds that they have also been able to deliver rations to 270 families in Mumbai and 50 families in Hyderabad. The process of delivery and distribution is varies for teams based out of different geographies.

Some students, research scholars and alumni of Jadavpur University have started the Jadavpur Commune (JC). Says Jadavpur University student and JC member Avik Das, “Our mission is to help the homeless, the footpath dwellers, people not getting sufficient ration and migrant workers stuck away from their homes — by serving them cooked meals or rations.”

Simultaneously, they are also distributing self-made hand sanitisers (made according to WHO guidelines) to people at bazaars, ration shops, grocery shops, guards at ATMs, sanitation workers and food delivery personnel. Avik adds, “We felt the need for it since some people have to be out of their homes — to buy essentials or because of their jobs — and not everyone can afford branded sanitisers.”

In the course of their debut week in end March, the commune fed 120 people every day. End April they completed the fourth week; the number has now gone up to 550 people every single day.

Robin Hood Army (RHA), a volunteer-based zero funds organisation has been working to get surplus food from restaurants to the hungry since 2014. During the lockdown they have launched added initiatives. One such is #SeniorPatrol, where they help senior citizens get access to basic rations and/or medicines. Its founder Neel Ghose tells The Telegraph, “Alongside, we have been coordinating scaled food drives in partnership with local governments and police across five countries. Our estimates are 800 to 1,000 student Robins have been serving over the last few weeks.” RHA has helped 550 families through the #SeniorPatrol initiative and served 2 million meals over the last month.

Local boy and student of THK Jain College, Shubham Upadhyay, started Let’s Feed Together last September. Today, Let’s Feed has 80 volunteers, most of them students of the same college. Says Shubham, “In every distribution, every volunteer donates Rs 100. We manage with that money and have been able to reach out to 2,000 people. We cannot give them cooked food, so we try to provide them with biscuits, buns and cakes.”

Since the lockdown, the team has been serving the poor in the Bhootnath area of north Calcutta, those outside the Sealdah station and people in Burrabazar.

These apart there are individual initiatives too right across the country. Bokaro’s Saurav Verma returned home a week before the lockdown from Bangalore, where he is pursuing a postgraduate degree at the ISBR Business School. He uploads a WhatsApp status daily, with pictures of food being served to the needy and rations and medicines being supplied to the elderly. It has been 40 days since he became part of Team Bokaro Hunger, which was started by an army personnel. Each of its 40 members are either students or from the army and they are providing essentials and cooked food to the needy. “We are feeding around 3,000 people every day with cooked meals and supplying rations and milk powder for children too in Majetiya Basti, Hanuman Nagar, Bagrabera, Chas and as many places as we can.”

With so many youngsters stepping up to take care of the needy, perhaps one of the side effects of the lockdown will be a kinder society.