A bank has come up in Darjeeling at a time the entire country is under lockdown.

MARG for the Distress Food Bank on Saturday started distributing 5kg rice, 1kg wheat, a litre of oil and 500 gram of lentils to each financially backward family in the hills.

Mankind in Action for Rural Growth (MARG), a Darjeeling-based NGO that is known for its exemplary work in human trafficking prevention, is being helped by Pranay Rai, a former Darjeeling MLA and a public prosecutor in the Darjeeling court, in the initiative.

The rules of the bank are simple.

If you are well off, you can only deposit. MARG is trying to ensure that the distressed can withdraw as many times as possible from the bank, provided the affluent extend help.

MARG general secretary Nirnay John said: “We want every samaj (local level society) to identify 11 individuals at the respective village who are running out of food or are in extreme financial distress. Among the 11, seven of them can be members of the samaj, while the remaining four should live at the village but are not members of the samaj.”

The president and the secretary of the samaj have to provide the names to MARG.

“We have found names of some people who own shops and cars. We politely told them that standing in a queue for free food grains does not suit them,” said Chhetri.

On the first day, there were about 50 “withdrawals” from the food bank.

Rai said the MARG had come up with the idea of a “food bank” to ensure that there was continuity of the scheme.

“Given the prevailing situation, we cannot make people contribute generously. But in this bank, one can donate as little as 1kg of food grain,” said Pranay Rai, whose contribution largely kicked off the bank project.

Police distributed food grains to 21 families of Singla in Darjeeling, while the Gorkha Dukha Niwarak Sammelan Hall decided to help people in need of food.