Tirupati: Anna canteen in Kuppam completes 500 days
Food being served to the needy at NTR statue in Kuppam on Wednesday
Tirupati : The Anna canteen, which was reopened in Kuppam last year, has successfully completed 500 days on Wednesday. Around 500 people are taking food per day in the canteen. Anna canteen has been running against all odds and TDP leaders in Kuppam in the name of NTR Trust have reopened it on June 5, 2022, which was closed in 2019 after the change of the government. However, it is a canteen with a difference as it runs in a tractor to serve the lunch for the needy in Kuppam. Though, they first started in pandals which were destroyed twice by YSRCP activists after which the TDP leaders changed the idea and decided to run it in the tractor.
The food items will be brought daily through the tractor and it will be served to the people at NTR statue. In fact, Anna canteen building was constructed in the town in 2019 with government funds which could not be opened as the election schedule was announced at that time. Hence it was continued under pandals only. After TDP leaders decided to run the canteen again, they wrote to the officials to allot the building to them but could not get any response.
The mobile Anna canteen has been helping several people visiting the town on various works daily and serving food free of cost from 12 noon to 1.30 pm daily irrespective of holidays or festival days. Along with white rice, rasam, sambar, curry, curd, sweet and papad will be served in a paper plate along with a water packet. The party leaders are running it with the generosity of donors for all these days and they were saying that there was a tremendous response from various sections. Even NRIs are approaching the organisers offering donations to provide food on the occasion of important occasions in their life like birthdays and marriage days. Canteen’s present organiser and TDP senior leader B M K Ravichandra Babu said that on the occasion of 500th day of the canteen, Maddina Rajesh and Sushmitha from Kuwait have sent the donation on the occasion of their wedding anniversary.