Giving Rural Healthcare a Boost: Ponty Chadha Foundation

India’s growth over the past few years has made it one of the rising economies worldwide. That growth however has not been inclusive, certainly not when it comes to public healthcare. 

While towns and cities have banked on the economic spike and strong healthcare infrastructures have come up, rural India seems alienated from such benefits. There is extreme lack of facilities in some places and professional access is vulnerable. 

The village of Shadipur Chiddoli brings out the real picture of India’s rural healthcare. In a village dominated by population of women and children, there is no regulated medicare facility which has left the villagers indisposed and vulnerable to disorders of joints and skin. 

On learning of the state of affairs in the village, the Ponty Chadha Foundation, which is the CSR arm of the Wave Group, held a health camp on 3rd December, 2014 to spread awareness about common disorders and conduct free medical check-ups with doctors from the Indo German Hospital joining in. 

Anticipating a huge gathering, the premises of a local school were brought into use. An examination and dispensing centre was set up and patients were asked to undergo mandatory registrations which began at 10 AM and continued on until the camp ended at 1 PM. 

During the examinations, it came out that a high number of the villagers showed signs of developing skin, gynecological, and joint issues. On interacting with them, volunteers from the Ponty Chadha Foundation realized that lack of awareness and options were the leading causes for the villagers neglecting evident symptoms.

A session was then held educating the villagers on the advantages of timely treatment and early diagnosis. Some villagers who were found showing developing symptoms were referred to the Indo-German Hospital where they would be administered treatment and advanced diagnostics. 

Rural healthcare is one of the areas of social welfare undertaken by Ponty Chadha Foundation, the CSR subsidiary of the Wave Group. Its outreach spans food fortification and special education. Under Vice Chairman Manpreet Chadha (Monty Chadha) the Wave group has gone on to become one of India’s leading realty conglomerates. 

Transforming Rural Health: Ponty Chadha Foundation

Healthcare is a fundamental right but many in India, especially rural India, do not get to enjoy it. Endogenous and exogenous factors continue to thwart thousands in rural areas from accessing fundamental healthcare.

The village of Shekhpur Khicra is a classic allegory of lack of healthcare facilities and rising cases that seek medical attention. After philanthropic organization Ponty Chadha Foundation overviewed the situation, it discovered medical attention was long overdue and set up a health camp on November 26^th 2014.  

The premises of the village school were drawn upon for hosting the event. Things kicked off early at 10 AM when the attendees started pouring in. Teams of doctors from the Indo German Hospital had joined in and together with volunteers from the Foundation they ensured things ensued in a businesslike manner.

A communications center was also set up where registrations took place. Every attendee had to register before they could see the doctor and an OPD card for the same was issued. Medicines and aid were thereafter given out from a separate counter within the premises.

On interacting with the gathering, volunteers from the Ponty Chadha Foundation realized the village had been facing gynecological and gastro issues but due to lack of options and awareness, they had not been able to seek proper treatment.  A short counselling session on the need of timely treatment and addressing many long-standing queries was also held.

 It also came out during the exchange that the village is made up by a large population of children and infants who were particularly indisposed to the lowly hygiene culture that prevails in the area. The volunteers then went on to discuss and spread awareness on the importance of hygiene and how the villagers could raise the bar on personal hygiene.

Some of the patients were found exhibiting signs of respiratory and joint issues and a few had to be referred to Indo German Hospital where they will be offered advanced diagnostics and treatment.

Ponty Chadha Foundation is the philanthropic wing of Wave Group established in memory of late Mr. Gurdeep Chadha. Its areas of influence include childcare, special education, and food provisioning.

PCF organizes health camp in Village Dinanathpur

Health is a privilege denied to many. While in theory, there shouldn’t be any demographic or racial divide in access to basic amenities and social services to the citizens of a nation, things play out very differently in India.

The rural-urban divide in the country continues to pit a huge disparity between the general health and wellbeing of the populace. While on one hand, modern amenities and medical facilities are increasingly improved for city dwellers, access to even basic healthcare and diagnostics is difficult for the rural public. And, as most of India –or most of its poor—live in the villages, dearth of qualified medical functionaries and basic healthcare infrastructure continues to be the biggest challenge that thwarts growth of the nation.

Identifying this national concern, the Ponty Chadha Foundation has set about making a change at the grassroots level. In a series of healthcare initiatives taken up by them to increase the outreach of medical facilities to the underserved, a health camp was organized at Village Dinanathpur in collaboration with the Indo German Hospital, on November 19^th. Starting off at 1000 hrs. morning, the camp saw a huge crowd turn up with as many as 121 patients from 300 families undergo examination until 1pm.

The Foundation had its experienced volunteers working together to avoid any pandemonium. The huge playground of the village government school was let out to provide ample room for the patients to be comfortably seated while they awaited their turn. Separate registration, check-up and medicine distribution counters were setup to further systemize the operation. A patient would have to first obtain a token number and get their name and age registered on the OPD card; then, they would wait for getting examined, following which medicaments from the dedicated counter could be collected.  

The doctors at the camp did a thorough check-up after which a few cases were referred to the Indo German hospital for further diagnostics and treatment. They also spread awareness about safe sanitation practices and its importance in general well-being.

The doctors said that most complaints pertained to respiratory problems and joint pain which could have been well-addressed with timely treatment. This message was passed on to the villagers and was evidently was well received.

Ponty Chadha Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Wave Group and works towards social welfare through special childcare and food supply.

A Healthcare Call by Ponty Chadha Foundation

At a time when health services are skewed towards urban dwellers that have access to 66% of available hospital beds in the country, parts of rural India cope up on their own. With inadequate healthcare facilities and infrastructure in rural parts, studies reveal that over three-fifth of village population travels over 5km on average just to find a healthcare utility.

Insufficiency in public healthcare leads such people to set hope towards private healthcare but it results in affordability issues. Aware of this anomaly, Ponty Chadha Foundation (PCF) organizes camps in remote regions across the country to help create self-awareness and broader national perspective.

The latest camp for this endeavour took place on 29th October in Raghunathpur and addressed general health problems faced by the villagers. The event was organized in collaboration with Indo German Hospital and administered free advice, aid, and guidance on safe healthcare-related practices.

To hold a large number of attendees, the premises of a local school were used. Proceedings began at 10 in the morning and continued till 1 pm.  While the doctors and paramedics conducted health checks, the volunteers of Ponty Chadha Foundation controlled crowd and logistics management.

Villagers were guided through a check point where they were provided tokens after they had filled out OPD cards. The event was well-executed right through as the teams of doctors, paramedics, and the Foundation displayed excellent coordination.

The ensemble of over a hundred and twenty two was treated for common healthcare problems that had before been untreated. When it came out that quite a few of them exhibited signs of body pain and Asthma, the most vulnerable were referred to Indo German Hospital for further treatment.

The camp was part of the drive Ponty Chadha Foundation undertakes in different regions across India to provide aid and bring to the forefront issues of local and national significance.

Website: http://thepontychadhafoundation.com/

Ponty Chadha Foundation Organizes Healthcare Camp in Village Kachera

The Ponty Chadha Foundation (PCF) organized a free healthcare camp in the village of Kachera on November 12th 2014 which was held from 10 am to 1 pm at the premises of a village temple and attracted huge gathering. .

The camp lasted nearly three hours with suitable arrangements for seating for the crowd which had begun building up early.  A pre-examination process was put in place where tokens were assigned to patients after getting their details on an OPD card. A separate counter for collecting medicines was also set up.

During the examination, doctors found vulnerability against anemia and gynecological issues was rather high among the villagers, and some of them were referred for further examination and treatment to the Indo German Hospital.

As one of the doctors from the camp observed, “There is a section of people who suffer from serious health issues but never go to a doctor because of lack of proper facilities. If they get early diagnosis, they can prevent a life-threatening situation.”

The day started building up early and when the examination was complete by 1 PM, 143 members from 600 families had enlisted free healthcare.

The camp was held in collaboration with Indo-German Hospital with the objective of raising awareness on general healthcare. Upon interacting with some attendees who had attended the camp, PCF volunteers found the villagers with greater understanding of issues they previously had little knowledge of.

Talking about the initiative Mr. Manjir Ghosh, Head CSR, Wave Group & CEO Ponty Chadha Foundation said, "It was the vision of our late Chairman Mr. Ponty Chadha to provide proper diagnostic facilities to the poor and needy people. He believed that lack of such facilities only lead to their poor heath and so proper diagnosis is crucial. Our attempts are wholeheartedly and sincerely directed towards addressing these grassroots problems wherein people do not get medical assistance due to financial constraints.”

Ponty Chadha Foundation works towards enabling equitable healthcare across all sections and demography. Its initiatives span special child education and healthcare and continue to spread awareness on these issues among the rural populace.

Ponty Chadha Foundation’s Village Naiphal Health Camp

As much as India has progressed on spreading basic healthcare far and wide, villages still seem a forbidden lot.  Some of them, like village Naiphal in Ghaziabad, still don’t have facilities of their own and rely largely on facilities a fair distance off.

Rather ironically, the village that has lately been notified as an urban body has no medicare facility of its own but hinges on the single government setup in Dasna Tehsil for its own health. This has made medicare hard to come by for villagers, many of whom face signs of respiratory, joint pain, and vision disorders.

When Ponty Chadha Foundation zeroed in on this particular village, it found many of the villagers warranted a medical prognosis of the signs they had developed. The Foundation took cognizance of this and on the morning of September 6^th 2014, a large-scale health camp was organised at the village temple premises.

Doctors and teams of paramedics from Dr. Ram Saran Garg Indo German Hospital voluntarily stepped in as part of the drive to administer free aid and advise the villagers on general healthcare. The event picked up steam quite early as eager villagers made a beeline for the camp, and by 0700 hours, a sizable gathering had queued up for making mandatory registrations. 

Nearly 700 families attended the event which culminated around 1300 hours after every attendee had got medical aid and attention from the teams of doctors and assistants. The temple premises aided coordination and order with ample seating arrangements made in advance by the PCF teams.

The objective of the camp to provide aid and educate the villagers on early diagnosis was successfully achieved as a number of the attendees with signs of likely respiratory, vision, and joint-related disorders chose to pursue further treatment at the Indo German hospital. PCF and the hospital also pledged aid and support to these villagers pursuing further line of treatment.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation actively takes up social welfare.  Health camps in remote areas are one of the ways the Foundation brings up rural health to the forefront. The current drive focuses on villages in North India and Delhi NCR which lack even basic healthcare access. The Foundation’s outreach extends to charities and organisations actively involved in social upliftment, one noted among those being the Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan (MBCN). 

Ponty Chadha Foundation’s Naiphal health Camp

The adage ‘health is wealth’ could never have been any truer than now.  While everybody these days scurries through tight schedules, it is health that gets pushed to the backburner. Though that’s generally true of urban populace, Ponty Chadha Foundation has learnt that villages have their own share of larger, and often unrecognized, problems. 

One such village is Naiphal in Ghaziabad.  The villagers here have been faced by lack of medical aid for the longest time, which was taken cognizance of by the Foundation, and, a health camp organised on 6th September, 2014.

The day set off early as villagers started queuing up at 0700 hours by the village temple which was used for the event. By 1000 hours, doctors and paramedics from the Dr. Ram Saran Garg Indo German Hospital got the camp officially underway, and by the stroke of noon, over 100 families had got a general health check done.

The momentum was maintained right through untilevery attendee had had themselves medically examined. As planned, by 1300 hours the whole village was comprehensively covered. 

As the paramedics and teams of doctors went about their business, a group of volunteers from the Ponty Chadha Foundation tended to the assemblage in the temple hall where due arrangements to accommodate the gathering had been made. 

Other volunteers divvied up in teams to ensure the villagers made the most of this opportunity and the event went by well-ordered.  Every villager was guided through a check point where they displayed their registration details before seeing the medical team. 

The dwellers of village Naiphal, it came out during the camp, were particularly prone to respiratory, joint, and vision issues, with quite a few of them, needing further treatment. Such cases were, after being examined and administered available aid, asked to show up at the Indo German Hospitalwhere they would get treated with support and aid from the Foundation

It is rather surprising that the village does not have any Anganwadi centre to aid its population. Ponty Chadha Foundation learnt through a former Anganwadi worker that the village was deemed an urban body which has putit directly under the purview of Dasna Tehsil’s government facility. Ever since, the gap between facilities and aid has only widened,and the village has not got due attention from the concerned authorities.

Ponty Chadha Foundation's Kazipura's Health Camp

The morning of 25th June was a bright one for the people of Kazipura, for the residents, in unison, assembled at Ponty Chadha Foundation’s free health campaign set up for treating health issues inherent in the region.

The village of Kazipura has a lot of people who suffer from joint pain and cataract. The most perturbing of all issues is that a greater part of the village finds professional healthcare hard to get to, and hence it’s kind of normal for matters of health to be shirked away as a way of life.

Realizing the problem, the Ponty Chadha Foundation approached with the solution of a health camp that attracted people from all walks, specially mothers and children. Dr. Ram Saran Garg hospital, the best Indo-German hospital around, and its team of doctors and paramedics collaborated in raising health awareness and treating the villagers for various issues.

The camp started at 10 in the morning and by 1 pm, a sizable population from the village of 250 families had got checked up for cataract and joint pain in particular, and undergone general healthcare checks.

The residents were beforehand informed to get themselves registered.  The team of doctors and the medical team, in tandem, ensured requisite medicaments were provided and those in need of extended medical supervision are taken under the wing.

The Ponty Chadha foundation has been doing its bit to scale up social welfare across the country. It focuses strongly on the idea of social parity through endeavours in health, education, and special care.

The Foundation also strongly advocates malnourishment eradication and several of its efforts, especially in rural India, are directed towards that. It has garnered the support of Indian FoodBanking Network and is steadily extending outreach through countrywide programs from time to time.

Ponty Chadha Foundation Initiates Health Camp in Hathipur

Healthcare in India is not a level playing field. Though technological advancements have led to state-of-the-art facilities across states, high treatment costs put these virtually out of bounds of the poor.

The existing public healthcare system, plagued by infrastructural, staffing, and quality issues, falls short on catering to over 260 million people in need of healthcare and nutrition support. Such a massive pressure exposes the cracks in the system all the more, and leaves nearly a third of the country deprived of quality health facilities.

Extending support in bridging some of the gaps is the Ponty Chadha Foundation. Recently, at a health camp held in village Hathipur (UP), the Foundation, along with staff from Dr. Ram Saran Garg (Indo-German) Hospital, tended to the indisposed with free medication, consultation, and examination.

Prenatal care was one of the key focus areas since the geography faces inadequate maternity care facilities. Would-be mothers and those who had recently embraced motherhood made a beeline for expert care from a distinguished team of doctors and paramedical staff.

The area has also been prone to cataract.  The old, in particular, have been majorly predisposed owing to below par ophthalmic support. A special team of ophthalmologists and optometrists served the affected, carrying out free surgeries, and educating the villagers on post-operative care.  The team also encouraged those with developing signs to adopt corrective measures.

In line with guiding principles of social welfare, a series of measures initiated across the country by Ponty Chadha's Foundation have helped bring aid to hundreds of needy with limited quality healthcare options. Some of the more recent efforts have been in small places like Inayatpur, Shadipur Chhidoli, and Dinanathpur Puthi and plans to extend further out to remote locales are on the way.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation: Curbing Child Malnutrition in India

The common perception about malnutrition in India being primarily a lack of food issue has been straightened out by the recent World Bank findings which state that lack of a central policy for food dissemination and low focus on quality have been instrumental in India lacking behind some sub Saharan African nations on the prevalence of underweight children.

Malnutrition in children is also as rampant because of inappropriate primary care facilities, high predisposition towards infection, and lacking in feeding and care, in the first few years of a child. This puts children in India, particularly from the economically marginalized classes, at the greatest risk of having to bear long-term malnutrition consequences.

India's central, and the most comprehensive policy response to child malnutrition, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), has not been as effective in controlling child malnutrition due to a number of reasons.

Firstly, the deployment for targeting greater mass coverage and the core focus of the program being children above three years of age have rendered the ICDS widely unyielding. Children under two years of age have been proven the most vulnerable, but this group is not what the ICDS is particularly aimed at.

Demographic and socioeconomic variables also play an important role, but as per the World Bank, greater damage is being caused by a lack of established food supply system and quality control. India produces enough food for its internal consumption, but is unable to feed its poor because of an imbalance between supply and production.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation has been drawing the nation’s attention on this front through its various initiatives directed at plugging the supply chain gaps. Its pilot food banking project in Delhi NCR has been acknowledged by the India Food Banking Network (IFBN) for being a charity-driven food chain that procures food directly from government funded agencies and ensures it gets delivered the quickest to the needy in Noida and Ghaziabad.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation: Food Bank Solution for Malnutrition

A major focus of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG), set in 2000 with a 2015-deadline, is to reduce the child mortality rate and bolster maternal care and health across the world. While a few countries, like China, have achieved phenomenal success with the MDG goals, India is more than likely to miss the mark on child malnutrition, sanitation, and other key social parameters despite a number of programs and measures having been introduced.

The World Bank puts a number of reasons accounting for India's lack of success to deduce that the country does not lack in food production means but has not been able to create an established system of monitoring nutrition and food delivery. A high segment of the malnourished population suffers because access to food sources and government programs is either limited or non-existent.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation's food banking concept, aimed at providing greater access to food supplies, addresses malnutrition at the core. The concept involves a chain of subsidiaries for procurement of government aided and surplus food supplies from charities, NGOs, and markets. The procurement, after being put through standard quality control checks, is delivered directly to an identified demographic.

A pilot run of the concept has been launched in Delhi NCR wherein the poor and needy from 18 villages around Noida and Ghaziabad are aided with food supplies. The initiative has already been recognized and supported by the Indian Food Banking Network (IFBN) and the foundation is planning to implement the system further across the country.

In line with its guiding philosophy of inclusive growth, the Ponty Chadha Foundation also runs free medical checks in special camps held across the country. It also aims at creating greater malnutrition awareness in the nation by engaging the youth of the country. Special sensitization drives are held to foster progress on this front.

Malnutrition Remains A Concerning Cause For India

For India, a strong, able bodied workforce that can drive production, increase exports, and strengthen the nation economically is a crucial growth factor. However, with the World Bank malnutrition findings, rating India worse than some of the poorest nations worldwide,and stating that the prevalence of underweight children in India to be higher than sub-Saharan nations, India’s growth aspirations stand severely challenged.

A huge malnourished section is a big impediment for any country and can potentially stall growth by creating an underproductive, undernourished workforce. India, in particular, has a culturally strong labour force, and the country needs it, to keep pace with the growing economy and support expanding infrastructure.

The fight against malnutrition has been a prolonged one for India. It is almost since independence that the country has been faced with malnutrition, and even with a number of schemes and programs being devised,checking the malnutrition curve has been a tall order.

According to the World Bank, India’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) is one of the most comprehensive and well-placed schemes to trigger a change, but needs a different implementation approach. Instead of focusing on gaining demographic coverage alone, the ICDS must be looked at in a way that promotes faster food delivery, nutrition control, and other core fundamentals.

The challenges for the undernourished set in, as early as birth, with as many as one in three newborns underweight, a majority on account of the malnourished mother. If not cared for, such children are highly likely to develop cognitive and physical disorders arising from the effects of stunting and wasting.

Serving hopeto the millions of malnourished in India is the Ponty Chadha Foundation which was established to further the vision of philanthropy. The foundation works towardhelping the weaker sections of society, through charity-driven socioeconomic measures.

Together, with the acclaimed India FoodBanking Network (IFBN), the foundation introduced the concept of the food bank in Noida and Ghaziabad wherein a chain of donors is used for procurement of food supplies delivereddirectly to those most in need, thereby eliminating supply chain delays.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation also offers free medical aid to the poor in 18 villages around Noida and Ghaziabad by periodically-organized free health checks and camps, with the aim to reach out to those socially marginalised and under-served sections of society in a short span of time. It also aims to sensitize the youth towards the needs of the poor by getting them involved with the Foundation’s schemes and programs.

The Fight Against Malnutrition

The value of good nutrition can hardly be overstated. Well-developed cognitive abilities along with sound physical and mental health and a healthy attitude towards life add up to greater earning capacities in adulthood, and consequently, a stronger nation.

It has been observed that the average wage of stunted and malnourished individuals is nearly twenty percent less compared to their counterparts. The cumulative effect that a large malnourished section can have on a nation’s economy is, therefore, immense.

The above analysis must be a strong area of concern from India’s standpoint. The nation, despite riding a decade of high economic surge, has widely been ineffective to cut back malnutrition. The country, according to the World Bank, ranks below some of the poorest sub Saharan nations on the prevalence of underweight children.

India faces a horde of issues when it comes to malnutrition, so much so that the Integrated Child Development System (ICDS), India’s central policy framework that aims to fight malnutrition, has been rendered partially ineffective.

It’s a little ironical that India does not suffer as much from shortage of production and poverty as from the lack of well-organised food delivery and nutrition. Food subsidies and special schemes are launched from time to time, but various demographic, socioeconomic, and geographical inequalities reduce their impact.

Another issue is the widening chasm between the classes. India’s strides on the economic front have not produced an equitable growth model. The already rich have benefited while the poor have little to draw out of it. The divide has created a palpable societal imbalance favouring the urban rich.

Furthermore, malnutrition cannot be treated with one yardstick across the country. There are several local and demographic factors at play. Certain states, for example, have been traditionally more predisposed towards child malnutrition. Others are affected to varying degrees and exhibit vastly different statistics for boys and girls. A one-size-fits-all approach cannot make a viable solution.

Realising the need for India to adopt a more inclusive approach on malnutrition, the Ponty Chadha Foundation has introduced a set of measures aimed at countering the issue with a modern, empirical approach.

The foundation has set out a plan to identify prevalent local factors to be met with tailor-made food banks. A food bank is a typical supply chain,which takes local influences into account and delivers quality controlled supplies directly to a pre-identified demographic.

The first of the chains is set up in Noida and Ghaziabad and has won the backing of the India FoodBanking Network (IFBN). The Foundation now looks at expansion into other parts.

India's Malnutrition Measures Need to Be Remodelled

India’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for 2015 mandates child mortality to be cut down by two-thirds.A low rate of progress and a range of associated factors have nearly made it a tall order, virtually out of reach.Currently, the nation ranks even below some of the sub-Saharan nations with its population of underweight children among the highest in the world, reports the World Bank.

India accounts for nearly one-third of the poor in the world. Nearly one-fourth of its population -- over 400 million people -- are given to poverty and impoverishment. More than half of those (sixty percent) come from a group of seven states with the lowest income quintile.

Furthermore, one-third of the new-borns are weak and fall below optimal birth weight. About forty-three percent of the children under the age of five are underweight, forty-eight percent stunted, nearly seventy percent highly prone to be anaemic, and over fifty percent exhibit a lack of Vitamin A.

In 2001, the Supreme Court mandated in a statutory ruling that the ‘Right to Food’ be implemented as one of the fundamental citizen rights. That brought immediate legal binding to the nutrition-intensive schemes running at that time. The central government further announced, in 2005, the enactment of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to aid the unemployed poor.

The most current of all malnutrition reforms has been the National Food Security Bill, which aims at providing highly subsidized food grains to nearly seventy percent of the population, passed by the Parliament in 2013. Even with a host of reforms, and a central Integrated Child Development System (ICDS) in place, the malnutrition rate in the country still exhibits an extremely high percentage, with children affected the most.

The problem, as observed by the Ponty Chadha Foundation and other institutions dedicated to the cause, does not lie in shortage of food, but in a lack of adequate means of supply. The Foundation also observes that government and other beneficiary schemes get scuttled because the benefits do not reach the intended target.

Taking strong view of this particular concern, the Foundation has started off a campaign to set up food banks across the country. These banks directly reach the poor with nutrition-intensive supplies procured from government charities, NGOs, and subsidiary associates of the Ponty Chadha Foundation.

The pilot trial in Noida and Ghaziabad itself has earned the backing of the India FoodBanking Network (IFBN), and the underlying aim is to take the program further into the country.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation: Serving the Malnourished

The World Bank has stated that one in three malnourished and poverty stricken people in the world live in India. According to the Global Hunger Index compiled by the International Food Policy Research Institute, 60 million children under the age of five and 21% of the overall population in India do not get proper food to eat. These statistics have made the nation to rank 68th out of 79 countries in the world in terms of malnutrition and poverty, even behind most sub-Saharan counties. The facts are in sharp contrast to the strong economic growth that India has been experiencing in the last fifteen years, and could leave everyone, from the man on the street to malnutrition experts, baffled.

A nation that boasts of economic growth but has a sizable population dealing with malnutrition and its aftereffects has got to revisit its growth fundamentals. A century ago, famines were held to be the main cause of malnutrition, but today, it’s a broken down supply chain infrastructure that’s hurting India more than anything.

Roadways, especially those that lead to agro-industrial areas, are not up to the mark, and, the produce goes through a plethora of middlemen and handlers before it reaches the marketplace. A considerable portion either rots along the way or loses wholesomeness. Moreover, such a long supply chain delays food from making it to marketplace, jacking up end-consumer prices in the process.

Rising prices, coupled with lack of quality control, makes it extremely difficult to create equitable nutrition standards, as is evident from the fact that India was among just three countries worldwide where nutrition situation actually worsened in the period from 1996 to 2011.

The National Food Security Bill was introduced in the parliament in early 2012 in the first attempt by the government to address this issue. Though well intentioned, it suffered from fundamental flaws. While it aims to subsidise food grains, it fails in accounting for the ambitious scale of the initiative, given India’s size and economic bindings. Most experts recommend improving transportation infrastructure and supply channels for a solution, a costly proposition in itself, but one which promises a more long term solution.

Improving the supply chain network so that food supplies directly reach the neediest of the needy is the mission of the Ponty Chadha Foundation, and it has set off by aiming to achieve the target in 18 villages around Noida and Ghaziabad in the NCR. Partnering up with India FoodBanking Network (IFBN), the foundation organises free food drives in the vicinity of their commercial projects as well as in a wider network of villages surrounding the metropolitan areas of the NCR, with talks of expanding the reach of the program pan-India.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation works to Keep Malnourishment at Bay

Malnutrition is defined by a lack of some or all nutritional elements essential for human health, and in India alone, children are the most visible victims of malnutrition. According to the latest UNICEF data, in India, one in three children is malnourished while 58% under the age of five are underweight or stunted. It might also come as surprise that in a survey conducted by the World Bank, one in three malnourished people in the world reside in India. In another study published by UNICEF, 68.7% of Indians survive on less than INR 124.00 a day.

India ranks 68th out of 79 countries in terms of malnourishment and hunger according the Global Hunger Index (GHI) and was among only three countries where the hunger situation actually worsened in the last few years (from 22.9% in 1996 to 23.7% in 2011), behind other developing nations such as Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

In olden times, it was fair to attribute malnutrition to widespread and frequent famines. However, in the present day, the production of food has increased dramatically and better means of agriculture are made available, but ironically, malnourishment has correspondingly increased. Studies make it abundantly clear that lack of enough food production is not at the root of the problem, but as majority of the experts agree, it’s that food does not reach the people most in need. It has become less of a production issue and rather a problem of the food supply chain.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation is looking to distribute food and help ease the problem of malnourishment through the concept of food banking. To this end they have partnered up with the reputed India Food Banking Network (IFBN) organising campaigns under the Ghaziabad-Noida Food Bank banner to distribute food to the poor through frequent free food drives in the villages around Noida and Ghaziabad. At present, the scope of the program is limited to the NCR region, but there are plans to extend the reach of the program to cover the whole of the country to further Mr. Ponty Chadha’s vision of a progressive India.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation for the Underprivileged

Philanthropy can bring about socio-economic changes at the grassroots and the Ponty Chadha Foundation has exemplified that. Incepted for creating parity across the board, the foundation has been working towards malnourishment eradication, special education, betterment of medical facilities, and food & nutrition accessibility to fringe demographics.

The charity is the vision for making philanthropy a distinctive culture in India. It works towards that goal through subsidiary setups which have come together under the PCF umbrella and work in unison.

The Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan (MBCN), a pivotal facility of the foundation, looks at providing holistic care for differently abled children. The institution holds special curriculums and is equipped with a core of trained faculty professionally adept for specific disorders. MBCN aims at meeting cognitive and nutrition requirements for autism, cerebral palsy, stunted growth, visual and hearing impairments, and other disorders hindering natural growth. The charity-driven school directs a greater part of its funding towards collaborating special physical, cognitive and nutrition needs.

Special education and child malnutrition are two of the most definitive causes the Ponty Chadha Foundation stands for. The foundation has gained momentum over time as sensitization on the issue picked up, but a lot of grounds need to be covered to pull India’s steep child malnutrition ratedown, which is currently behindsome of the most impoverished countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The drive to make food more accessible fundamentally has seen the Ponty Chadha Foundation earning the collaboration of the nation’s food banking authority, the Indian Food Banking Network (IFBN). IFBN fosters sustainable food chains reaching out to underprivileged demographics, and teamed up with the foundation, the collaboration has seen Noida in Delhi NCR get its first food bank. The bank is essentially an end-to-end supply chain for procurement and delivery of food supplies and quality control.

Working towards restored societal balance requires branching out extensivelyand with increasing demographic coverage and social initiatives, the Ponty Chadha Foundation is adding meaning to the hope of the hundreds of thousands of needy, who deserve to be reached out the soonest possible.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation: Aiding Food Banking in India

The economic downturn may well be done and dusted, but the spins-offs are yet to be a thing of the past. A tight finance and stretched out economy, and a sizable population from the developing world struggling to make ends meet is very much a part of the ground reality.

Food shortage in particular, has scaled up to a much bigger global problem, with one of the most pervasive offshoots being malnutrition.  With prevalent food shortage, supply chains sourcing from public to private resources can be quite resourceful to fill up a growing demand for food.

A major chunk of the food supplies come from what is termed as a ‘food bank.’ Donated food comes into the bank from multiple sources across the value chain--businesses, schools, religious charities, or organised drives. The guiding principle to food banking is accumulation of surplus food with standard quality controls. Food banks essentially channelize accrued food to the people in need. Most supplies are collected by member subsidiaries which then go through the process of warehousing, packaging, and eventually ensuring delivery. The delivery channels can vary, but charity organizations remain the fundamental drivers of the food banking system. Typical food collection facilities can be member charities, food drives, soup kitchens, or subsidiary chain of accumulation channels.

In India, food banking is on the way to establishmentunder the Indian Food Banking Network (IFBN), an umbrella setup which envisagesthe coming together of sustainable food chains across the country. The organisation drives food down a chain of subsidiaries through to the grassroots. The supply sources vary between voluntary donations, government aid, and funded purchase.

Aiding IFBN to greater ground coverage in Delhi NCR is the Ponty Chadha Foundation (PCF), a charity institution dedicated to the cause of social welfare and upliftment. The foundation has pioneered a number of undertakings that reach out to the underprivileged with aid going out in different forms.

Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan (MBCN) looks at the challenges of differently abled children by specially designed curriculums for cognitive stimulation and growth. In its role as a special school, MBCN fosters holistic child development, all the way up to providing rehabilitation of children fighting disabilities like cerebral palsy and autism.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation is boosted by a line of tie-up with NGOs and other charity organisations working towards, and guided by the common cause of, advancing social welfare. The guiding principle to the Ponty Chadha Foundation is all but a means to that end.

MBCN is a charitable school which is empowered by The Ponty Chadha Foundation

This image was clicked on February 6, 2014 at Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium in New Delhi during one of the Hero Hockey India League (HHIL) series matches. Here, the students of Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan (MBCN) got the opportunity to meet Bollywood superstar John Abraham. The children brought with them self-made paintings as gifts for the Bollywood star and he reciprocated by signing autographs for them. The children were delighted to meet their favorite Bollywood hero.

MBCN is acharitable institute which works in line with The Ponty Chadha Foundation, a charitable trust working towards the betterment of the socially marginalized and neglected sections of society.

The school caters to the educational needs of differently abled children; fostering equal growth opportunities while helping them to be economically independent and self-assured.

At one of the matches of the on-going HHIL Hockey tournament, Delhi Waverider’s team received avid support from some special fans, the students of Mata Bhagwanti ChadhaNiketan (MBCN), when they recently attended a match at Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium in New Delhi.

Prepped with cheer-flags and banners, the children of MBCN had a great evening cheering their favourite team. This image was taken at a pivotal moment when all eyes were glued to the field.

All children are differently abled students that MBCN helps with their tutelage. This charitable school was conceived in 1999, after which ‘The Ponty Chadha Foundation’ was conceived to serve this cause and many others.

The differently abled children studying at the Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan (MBCN) School recently got a chance to enjoy an HHIL hockey match. The children were at the Major Dhyan Chand National stadium on February 6, 2014 where they got the opportunity to meet B-town celebrity John Abraham. These are some students posing for the camera, delighted after an interaction with him; he also autographed some of the paintings that the children had brought as gifts for him.

MBCN, a school for the differently abled children, has been facilitating several such events in order to give children with special needs personal interaction with their role models. It is a charitable school working in line with The PontyChadha Foundation, a charitable trust established by Mr. Gurdeep SinghChadha (Ponty Chadha) of the Wave Group.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation Sponsors the International Badminton Tournament at Lucknow

January 26, 2014, Lucknow: On the occasion of the 64th Republic Day, the finale of the Syed Modi Badminton Tournament, sponsored by the Ponty Chadha Foundation, was organized at the Babu Banarasi Das Indoor Stadium.

The event, which was held on January 21, 2014, saw its closure with India winning the Women’s League. In this tournament, the Indian star player and Olympic bronze medalist, Saina Nehwal, bagged the coveted trophy. This was her first victory in the finals in the last fifteen months. Her win in the semi-finals was a sure-shot sweepstake for her as P V Sindhu (India) was to contend against her in the finals.

Though PV Sindhu arrived with some victories against top-class opponents and even landed a bronze at the World Championships last year, badminton enthusiasts waited with bated breath to watch her showdown with Saina Nehwal. The opportunity came during this tournament, which was the first international meeting of the duo. PV Sindhu, who earlier lost twice to Saina Nehwal in the Indian Badminton league, suffered a straight-game defeat though both differ only by two seeds in the international rankings. Besides the Women’s Single, India could not make up in any of the other leagues and lost to China in the Men’s Single, Mixed Doubles, Men’s Doubles and Women’s Double.

The tournament was sponsored by the Ponty Chadha Foundation in light of encouraging the sport. A sum of USD 120,000 was spent in organizing this well-received and well-attended event.

About the Ponty Chadha Foundation

The Ponty Chadha Foundation has been working towards alleviating various social impediments, and encouraging the welfare of society. It has been actively working towards eradicating hunger through the Ghaziabad & Noida Food Bank project by organizing various drives and facilitating many similar events. The foundation also fosters education for the mentally disabled children through its special school, the Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan. Moreover, it actively promotes sports such as Hockey and Badminton in the community.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation - Organized an event to help alleviate hunger and malnutrition

The Ponty Chadha Foundation recently organized a seminar where eminent social workers discussed the pressing issue of hunger and malnutrition that is rampant in India.

The event was held at the Grace Care NGO located in Sector 3, Noida. Also in attendance, the seminar saw the participation by many prominent NGO’s and charity organizations that are active in the NCR.

During the course of the seminar, hunger related issues pertaining to poverty were discussed and all who were present unanimously agreed upon the fact that food banking has the potential to be a revolutionary concept to tackle the age-old problem of poverty and malnourishment in India. The summit drew to a close by everybody agreeing to work towards eradicating hunger and malnutrition in India by the year 2020.

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The Ponty Chadha Foundation is a charitable organization dedicated towards eradicating poverty and social anomalies among the people in India. It works towards alleviating hunger amongst the poor people of the rural areas of NCR through a joint establishment with the Ghaziabad & Noida Food Bank. In addition, the foundation has put in place various programs for the betterment of the mentally disabled, improving the health of the poor and also encourage young children belonging to the lower strata of society to actively participate in sports.

As a part of the Ponty Chadha Foundation’s mission to consistently help and aid those who are less fortunate than us, it sponsored blankets for 200 students from 3 schools in Ludhiana. The children who received the blankets come from economically weak families; some of them are affected by the tribulations of child labour while others were disabled. Mr. Manpreet Singh Chadha (MontyChadha), Vice Chairman of the Wave Group and who was a driving force behind the program, was present at this occasion and personally handed out the gifts to these children.

Swami Vivekananda Vridh Ashram, an old age home in Ludhiana, Punjab, received gifts of food products and sweets from the Ponty Chadha Foundation. Mr. Manpreet Singh Chadha (Monty Chadha), Vice Chairman of the Wave Group, graced the occasion with his presence and handed out grants to the staff of the old age home. The Ashram, a non-profit organization working for the care of the aged men and women who live there, was pleased to receive the aid.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation is a charitable organization and is the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) arm of the Wave Group. It has been actively undertaking philanthropic endeavours that are unique in the way it tackles the problems of poverty, malnutrition, mental disability and other physical ailments of people in India.

The Ponty Chadha Foundation Takes On Poverty at the Grassroots

Hunger is a massive problem in most developing nations and India, in particular, is one of the worst affected nations globally in terms of food distribution and poverty. Although a governmental welfare system of rationing food supplies is in place which caters to low income families, as for most of those living below the poverty line, this system is not adequate. Various studies have reported India as just slightly higher than the poorest of the poor nations in the world. The World Bank states that as many as one in three undernourished and poverty stricken people of the world reside in India. 

The problem lies with the fact that many of the welfare programs and food distribution drives are unable to reach out to majority of people in need, with bribery and corruption failing even the most well-intentioned efforts. This is largely why India ranks 68th out of 79 countries on the Global Hunger Index (GHI) and starvation rate actually increasing from 22.9% in 1996 to 23.7% in 2011. 

The news is not all bad though. The Poverty Development Goal Report has said that almost 320 million people in India are on their way to being lifted out of poverty by 2015 and that out of all the South Asian countries, India is the only one that is on the right path to halving the poverty rate by the target of 2015. 

Helping to meet this demanding target is the Ponty Chadha Foundation, established in the memory of Mr. Gurdeep Singh (Ponty) Chadha; which established the Ghaziabad-Noida Food Bank in collaboration with the reputed India FoodBanking Network (IFBN). By putting in place concrete steps to ensure welfare of poor people through free food programs, the foundation aims to enhance the lives of those below the poverty line in villages around Ghaziabad and Noida, and helping out people in the vicinity of its Wave City projects near NH-24, Ghaziabad.