IDFC FIRST Bank has announced the launch of “GharGhar Ration” Program, an Employee-funded program for its low-income customers whose livelihoods are affected by COVID-19. The Bank also announced a comprehensive program for the families of employees who unfortunately lost their lives due to COVID-19, and a number of other social response initiatives aimed at controlling the spread of the virus.

“GharGhar Ration” is a unique program where employees have contributed from their personal income to set up a Customer COVID Care Fund to provide relief to 50,000 COVID affected low-income IDFC FIRST Bank customers. Employees of the Bank contributed one day to one month’s salary for the purpose. The program involves supply of ration kits to such 50,000 low-income customers whose livelihood have been impacted by the pandemic.

Employees are procuring ration kits comprising 10 kg rice/ flour, 2 kg dal (lentils), 1 kg sugar and salt, 1 kg cooking oil, 5 packets of assorted spices, tea and biscuits and other essentials needed to support a small family for about a month. These ration kits are directly delivered in-person at customers’ homes with a personal touch from the Bank. In rural locations, the ration kits are delivered physically by employees and in urban locations, employees provide pre-paid cards worth Rs. 1800 to affected customers, which can be used to buy such essential supplies.

Impacted customers can directly contact the nearby branch to seek support under this program. Even overdue customers are eligible to get benefit under the program.  Under the pilot program, employees have already distributed 1000 ration kits in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Haryana successfully.

V Vaidyanathan, MD & CEO, IDFC FIRST Bank, said, “While we cannot solve all problems considering the magnitude of the crisis, we want to support our customers to the extent we can, and hence our “GharGhar Ration” program. Under this program, our employees contributed varying amounts from a day’s salary to a month’s salary to create a COVID Customer Care Fund. We then decided to use this Fund for directly supporting our customers whose livelihood is affected due to COVID-19. Our employees will personally supply essential ration to our affected customers. We have been driving the philosophy of “Customer First” at our Bank and we felt that there is no better way to instil this philosophy in our employees than by employees directly contributing for the welfare of our affected customers.”

Employee COVID Care scheme 2021: The Bank has also launched a comprehensive Employee COVID Care Scheme 2021 to support the families of employees who have lost their lives due toCOVID-19, with retrospective effect from the start of the pandemic. The Scheme comprises the following: