Noida youth turns saviour for man's best friend during lockdown, feeds 700 strays daily

By Saurabh Verma
Noida (Uttar Pradesh) [India], June 15 : Owing to his office being closed due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown, a 28-year-old youth from Noida was off work and with a lot of free time on his hands, he decided to use it for helping the stray dogs in his locality.
Not just humans, street dogs are also bearing the brunt of unprecedented coronavirus crisis as they are mostly dependent on leftovers from restaurants, canteens and marketplaces, all of which remained shut in the wake of pandemic. The situation became grimmer as even people who used to feed the canines daily stopped stepping out of their homes.
Moved by the plight of animals, Vidit Sharma, who works as an assistant manager at a Delhi-based automobile company started feeding dogs in different localities of Noida twice a day.
For over two months, he was feeding the canines twice a day without missing any day. He started by giving food to four street dogs in his locality but is now feeding around 700 canines on a daily basis.
"I have been feeding street dogs for four years. Following the announcement of lockdown, my office was also closed so I started doing this at a large scale. Street dogs and other stray animals are dependent on leftover food from offices, restaurants and malls but they were closed due to lockdown," he said.
"I started feeding four dogs in the beginning. But later, the number increased and I am feeding around 700 dogs and 45 puppies. During the lockdown, I used to feed them twice a day. But now since my office has resumed recently I have started feeding them at night. I have hired a rickshaw-puller who feeds the strays in the day," the dog lover said.
[{bada4a2b-632b-4ece-b87b-3db4f7da2336:intradmin/vidi-sharinline-1.jpg}]
The 28-year-old explained, "I cook 100-kilogram rice daily in my kitchen. I mix soybean and around 200 eggs in rice. Then we feed them. We also serve them 'daliya' and rotis with milk. We change the food every day."
Sharma said that the strays now regularly wait for him for their daily meal.
Concerned with accidents at night, Sharma also started an initiative to procure collars with radium for these dogs. He said that accident cases can be reduced as radium collars would help drivers to identify dogs even in the dark.
"During the lockdown, traffic was minimum. After 'Unlock1' began, accidents cases increased. Then, I came up with the idea of radium collars. It will help people to identify these dogs in the dark. I have purchased 60 radium collars. One collar costs Rs 360. I am planning to purchase 1,000 collars," he said.
[{4da2a842-9f00-4777-9962-30d1b08226a5:intradmin/vidit-sharminline2.jpg}]
Sharma regularly posts photos and videos of his canine friends on social media platforms. Some individuals have approached him with promises of help but he is still the major investor in the initiative he started. He said that he has invested the major portion of his savings in helping the canines.
"When I posted this on social media, some people helped us. Some helped with money, a shopkeeper provides me with rice at a price lower than the retailing price. A person provides me milk at the rate which is cheaper than the market rate," he said.
Sharma also said that the rickshaw puller drops off the meals at various places in Noida. He also gets help from one of his close friends.