MumbaiCares - Episode 1: Two school kids from Mulund create a website for locating nearby essential services

COVID 19 cases in the state of Maharashtra have increased exponentially and the lockdown which was supposed to avoid crowding, was at some places, unfortunately, causing chaos and panic along with crowding at supermarkets for basic necessities. Reports state that people are queuing up for necessities for several hours outside supermarkets, in queues up to 1 km long and with no social distancing. While small kirana stores and vegetable vendors are relatively empty with no customers.

With the ongoing COVID-19 nationwide lockdown, one can only step out of their house for essential services. With people stocking up on groceries more than usual and supply chains not functioning at full capacity, there's crowding at supermarkets and local stores, along with a lot of shops not having enough supplies.

To make life easier, two school kids from Mulund - Russhil Chawla of Grade 9 and Prissha Chawla of Grade 12 - have developed a website 'BazicNeeds' that updates users on the timings and supply availability of shops selling essential goods. Russhil is a student of Smt Sulochandevi Singhania School and his sister, Prissha is a student of grade 12, Pace Jr. College of Science (ex Singhania School & IIT aspirant). The siblings were reading about serpentine queues outside D-Mart in their suburb of Mulund since the last few days. 

The lack of social distancing while crowding at a shop was a major motivation for them to make the website. 'BazicNeeds' as it's called faced several difficulties while trying to collect data and update information on the shops in different localities. In an exclusive chat with MumbaiLive, on the first episode of Mumbai Cares, these amazing kids share the journey so far and what made them do their bit to tackle this issue during the coronavirus pandemic.

These young entrepreneurs have proven that Mumbai truly cares and that we can all contribute, in the war against the virus. The duo aims to provide additional services, like doctors, and home tiffin delivery services. Soon, students from across the country would be able to enrol to build the database for the whole country as a crowdsourced initiative.