Even More Startups And Companies Have Come Together To Do Their Bit For The Kerala Flood Victims

OfficeChai Team

As floods had ravaged Kerala and over 350 people had lost their lives, several companies and startups had stepped up to do their bit to help — Amazon was letting people donate essentials through its site, and several payments companies had opened donation options within their apps. But as the scale of the disaster has become clearer, a truly staggering number of companies have opened up programs, all using their strengths to help out Kerala’s flood victims. Here are some of the best received efforts.

kerala floods companies and startups

 

Uber: Uber deals with millions of passengers every day, and attempted to leverage these touch-points to collect relief materials for Kerala flood victims. From Sunday to Tuesday, Uber riders in Chennai and Bangalore can give items they’d like to donate to their Uber driver partners, and they would be eventually passed on to an authorized collection point. Uber said it was collecting packaged baby food, antiseptics, batteries and sanitary pads.

Ola: Fellow ride hailing company Ola opened a link within its app which allowed riders to donate to Kerala victims through its app. Users also had the option to donate a fixed amount for every ride.

Zomato: Zomato usually delivers food straight to your home, but its app now allowed you to donate food to a stranger affected by the floods. Zomato partnered with the Akshaya Patra foundation, and allowed its users to donate meals for 3, 6 or 10 people. As of today, Zomato said it had delivered 200,000 such meals.

 

BigBasket: If Zomato delivered food, grocery delivery company BigBasket delivered groceries. BigBasket allowed its users to donate bundles of everyday necessities through its platform, such as rice, sugar, dal, water and sanitary pads. BigBasket allowed customers to choose between different kinds of packs they’d like to donate, starting from Rs. 107.

Xiaomi: Xiaomi said it collected 250 kg of food items and toiletries, and sent it to relief camps.

Sony: As startups quickly got relief efforts up and running, larger corporate weren’t left behind. During the innings breaks in the current England-India test match, Sony broadcast ways through which people could donate money to help, and flashed important numbers and bank account details.

TVS Motors: TVS didn’t involve its customers, but simply went ahead and donated Rs. 1 crore of its own money to help with the relief efforts.

Jet Airways: Jet Airways is currently beset with some tough times — its stock price has plummeted, and the company’s losses are ballooning. But Jet announced special flights to the Kochi naval base amidst the disaster which would commence from 21st August. 

Telecom operators: And India’s many telecom operators stepped up as well. Jio offered its Kerala customers complimentary unlimited voice and data access for a week, and Vodafone gave its prepaid customers in Kerala Rs. 30 of talk time and 1 GB of free data. Idea announced an emergency credit of Rs. 10 to all its customers in Kerala. State-owned BSNL offered free calls to BSNL and non-BSNL numbers upto 20 minutes a day, and declared that SMSes would be free in Kerala for the next 7 days.