Times Now Features Umeed’s Work in India’s Fight Against COVID-19

 As the national lockdown extended week after week, the humanitarian crisis unfolding across India grew larger than any single institution could handle. Among those most affected were migrant workers, families who had built the cities they lived in, yet found themselves stranded without income, transport, or food. Their distress calls created one of the most urgent moral challenges of the pandemic. In its coverage, Times Now recognised the role played by Project Umeed, a citizen-driven initiative that stepped forward at a moment when uncertainty was at its peak.

The report highlighted Umeed’s efforts to support migrant families through large-scale food relief. With a network of volunteers working across neighbourhoods, highways, industrial clusters, and transit points, Umeed distributed dry ration kits to over 30,000 migrant families, many of whom had gone days without a nutritious meal. In addition, the organisation served 1,00,000 freshly prepared meals, ensuring that households in temporary shelters, construction sites, and informal settlements received immediate sustenance during the most chaotic months.

Times Now also underscored the logistical challenges that made these numbers significant. Supply chains were disrupted, movement across states was restricted, and containers of essential goods took days to reach their destinations. Despite these barriers, Umeed built a decentralised delivery model using local vendors, volunteers, and community leaders. Kits were assembled in safe, sanitised spaces and then distributed through carefully coordinated routes to minimise crowding.

The feature placed equal emphasis on the human side of the effort. Volunteers spoke about families who broke down upon receiving food, not out of relief alone, but out of the exhaustion that comes from prolonged survival-mode living. Many migrants had been walking for miles under the scorching sun, hoping to return to their villages. Umeed’s distributions offered a moment of rest and reassurance in the middle of this uncertain journey.

Times Now framed Umeed’s work as evidence of what collective action can achieve, a reminder that ordinary citizens, when united by compassion, can build support systems faster than formal structures at times.