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Anna Canteens to hit petty food vendors
As the preparations are afoot to launch ambitious Anna Canteens to serve good food for the urban poor, the street food vendors and mobile food court operators fear that these subsidised outlets would eat into their small-time businesses and affect their livelihood.
Visakhapatnam: As the preparations are afoot to launch ambitious Anna Canteens to serve good food for the urban poor, the street food vendors and mobile food court operators fear that these subsidised outlets would eat into their small-time businesses and affect their livelihood.
It is learnt that breakfast, lunch and dinner would be provided at 25 Anna Canteens in the city at a cost of Rs 5. Though the scheme is a boon for destitute, elderly, unemployed, migrants and working poor, the petty food vendors point out that they too belong to the lower stratum of the society.
According to sources, the ballpark figure of several kinds of petty food outlet vendors in the Port city would be 8,000, who serve either breakfast or lunch while others go for noodles and rotis in the evening.
“We dish out lunch with unlimited rice at Rs 25. As all our customers are labourers, we surely lose them if we have to compete with subsidised Anna Canteens,” said Lakshmi, who sells food on pushcart. Interestingly, there are scores of low end fast food outlets spread out in the city serving noodles in huge quantity at Rs 15 to Rs 20. People who can’t even bear the low-priced lunch are opting for this junk food to fill their stomach.
“Initially, I used to run my noodles point only in the evening. But students and workers asked me to serve noodles in afternoon too as the found this food cheap. Now, my business starts from afternoon,” explains Naresh and adds that he is worried about Anna Canteens as they would spell doom to his livelihood.
Speaking to The Hans India, CITU district general secretary Ramesh welcomed the government’s move to supply subsidised food to the poorest of the poor. However, he has a different take on the operation of Anna Canteens.
“The government can act wisely by making use of the displaced food vendors’ services to run Anna canteens instead of giving the contract to some agency,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Anna Canteens affect would be less on the high-end mobile food joints in the early stage as they cater to the needs of well-off customers apart from students and workers.
By: Y Abhishek Paul
