Subsidised canteens need facelift, image upgrade

Providing food has been considered to be the ultimate service in more ways than one in Indian society. Irrespective of religion, one has heard how people have selflessly served the poor and the needy all across the nation, often spending their own resources and time to keep the ‘seva’ going across generations.

While such individual initiatives have been recognised, it has not always been scalable given the huge gap in demand and supply. Mercifully, for its own self-serving reasons, governments have played the welfare role and stepped in into this zone, opening subsidised canteens and attempting to give a decent meal for those who need it but cannot always afford it.In south India, with the midday meal scheme for school children taking off in Tamil Nadu and Andhra and replicated across the other states, this process was set in motion.

For the adult clientele who also need to be served, there have been Amma canteens and Anna canteens, with Indira canteens too serving the purpose in Karnataka. Telangana has an existing scheme in partnership with Akshaya Patra which has outlets in many parts of Hyderabad serving food for Rs 5, with the government subsidising a considerable part of the expenses.

Politics has often interfered in the continuity of such much-needed schemes with opposing parties scrapping or renaming it whenever it is their turn to rule. In Tamil Nadu, in a rare act of generosity, the DMK government had agreed to continue the Amma canteens launched by their political rival, J Jayalalithaa when she was alive.

News is that the TDP-ledNDA government in Andhra Pradesh will open 100 ‘Anna’ canteens on August 15 as per a recent announcement. 100 canteens would be set up in 33 municipalities across the state and they would provide meals for Rs 5. The 204 Anna canteens were shut by the previous government of YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) led by Jagan Mohan Reddy, established between 2014 and 2019 to provide meals at Rs 5 to the poor and the middle class, on alleged corruption charges.At a few places, the YSRCP re-opened the canteens after renaming them as ‘Rajanna’, as the late chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR) was fondly called.

One hopes that the canteens maintain a reasonable standard in hygiene and food varieties and given the tech-savvy nature of the present CM, Chandrababu Naidu adopt digital technology to scale up its operations.

Karnataka has its Indira canteens which are being reopened and if latest reports are to be believed the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is planning to implement digital ordering system in Indira canteens like hotels and restaurants. Food quality, customer demand, shortfalls are to be analysed through this digital system.

It sounds incredible but not impossible if the government really aims at fulfilling a basic need of a majority of its citizens, who are still beyond the range as far as availability of quality food goes for the budget they can afford. After all, the success of any innovation or tech knowhow attains its peak level when it serves a large section of people in this hugely populated country. Breaking free from it being just a ‘poor man’s hangout’ and making it attractive for all can also be possible when technology is deployed to blend food and the delivery model it adopts.