A community-built Hyderabad annadanam website is helping residents locate more than 2,000 free-meal distribution points at Ganesh festival pandals across Hyderabad and parts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
The platform, annadanamspots.in, allows users to search for meal locations by area and day. Listings include addresses and directions, while some also provide organisers’ phone numbers. The information is intended to help people find nearby annadanam programmes during the festival’s 11-day period.
The website is particularly aimed at bachelors and people living in hostels and paying guest accommodation, who may need accessible meal options while moving through the city. Users can view pandals serving meals on a particular date and identify locations along their daily routes.
Vamsi S, a resident of Uppal, said he discovered the website through a friend and found that more than 15 free-meal locations were operating near him, with services available in both the morning and evening. “I feel this is really useful to bachelors like me,” he said.
Another user, techie Harish Reddy K, said he was using the platform to check meal locations on his way home from work. He added that most of the posts he had seen appeared genuine.
The website uses community contributions. Users can log in with an email ID to post details of an annadanam programme, report a listing or indicate their interest in attending a free-meal distribution. The arrangement allows information about temporary festival services to be collected in one searchable platform rather than remaining dispersed across personal networks and messaging groups.
M Vikas Reddy, who built the website with Lakshman G, Akshay K, Rithish R and Nikhilesh B, said the platform was created after the group’s earlier practice of using a WhatsApp group to track annadanam programmes. The developers began building the website at around 3.30am and made it live as a community project.
According to Reddy, the site received about 10 lakh visits in a day, exceeding the team’s expectations. He said the developers planned to keep the website active and use it to connect people who want to donate food with those seeking meals.
The platform’s immediate function is limited to listing and connecting users with organisers. The information remains dependent on user-submitted entries, while the site provides mechanisms for reporting posts and sharing organiser contact details. Its next stated step is to continue operating beyond the current festival period and support links between food donors and people in need.
