Banana Leaves Replace Plates At His Factories Amid Lockdown. Anand Mahindra Explains

Industrialist Anand Mahindra has opted for a sustainable way to feed workers at his factories during the nationwide lockdown. Instead of plates, food is now being served on banana leaves at his auto conglomerate Mahindra group's factory canteens.

It all started with an email from retired journalist Padma Ramnath, who Mr Mahindra said "mailed me out of the blue" with a suggestion.  Banana leaves instead of plates would help struggling banana farmers to help sell their produce. The 21-day lockdown in the country has gravely affected daily wage earners and farmers.

Mr Mahindra said that his "proactive" factory teams instantly worked on the idea and replaced plates with banana leaves in their canteens.

A retired journalist, Padma Ramnath mailed me out of the blue & suggested that if our canteens used banana leaves as plates, it would help struggling banana farmers who were having trouble selling their produce. Our proactive factory teams acted instantly on the idea...Thank you! pic.twitter.com/ouUx7xfMdK

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) April 9, 2020

His tweet was liked over 13,000 times within an hour. Mr Mahindra also shared photos of his workers eating from banana leaves.

People on Twitter commended the businessman for helping out small businesses.

I haven't seen too many philanthropist businessmen . Good to have people like you in our nation.

— Alok gupta🇮🇳 (@alokg2k) April 9, 2020

wow!!! this is really nice. All should think of such innovative ideas to keep small businesses alive

— Debali Basu (@debalib) April 9, 2020

Eco friendly and also good to eat in banana leaves for healthy & sustainability

— 🎭Yeswanth(యశ్వంత్) 💫 (@yeswanth86) April 9, 2020

The lockdown to contain the spread of the deadly coronavirus has hit the Indian economy hard. Small businesses are perishing, and many are struggling to make ends meet. Centre and state governments have ramped up efforts to help the poor and are trying to deal the financial crisis.

The country has reported over 5,000 active coronavirus cases and 166 deaths as of today morning.