Kolkata’s cycle army delivers essentials to the elderly

KOLKATA: A young postgraduate student of Public Policy at King’s College London had to come back to the city when campus shut because of Covid. In between his online classes, Arvind Kumar realised that his grandmother needed someone to carry essentials to her because she was home bound in the midst of the pandemic.
He soon realised that there were hundreds of seniors who needed help. So started Cycle Soldiers, a band of young students and professionals who are spending time in between online classes and work for home, to cycle essentials to people.
Arvind had posted a request on social media for volunteers and within days an army was formed. Be it medicines, grocery, vegetables or anything else, you just have to call any of the eight volunteers and tell them where to buy from and how much is needed. The rest is taken care of at no extra charge. Permissions have been secured from all police stations in the south Kolkata. “The officers-in-charge have happily helped. We started with the Rabindra Sarobar where OC Jayanta Mukherjee was the first to give us permission,” Arvind said.
Others in the team are Yashvardhan Gupta, an undergraduate from University of London, Noumaan Anwer, an undergraduate from St Stephen’s College, Vishalakshi and Rajdeep Mantha, masters in art design and technology and LLB student respectively, T K Radhakrishnan from ITC Infotech and author-poet S S Kumar. Seniors like Charu and Vilas Pradhan of Jodhpur Park are dependent on the Cycle Soldiers, while Nirlay Kundu from Boston often asks the team to deliver things to his elderly father in Dhakuria.