Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi at the launch of the Indira canteen in Bengaluru (Photo courtesy: @INCIndia/Twitter)
Did the Siddaramaiah government in Karnataka get the inspiration for opening subsidised food canteens across Bengaluru from neighbouring Tamil Nadu? It seemed so, if you go by party vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
Gandhi, after inaugurating one-such canteen in the city, suffered a slip of tongue in his address when he said, “Every single poor person in every single city in Bangalore will feel that in the state of Karnataka, under Siddaramaiah ji’s government, I simply cannot go hungry. That is the vision of the Amma…erm…Indira canteen.”
The canteens, that will serve breakfast at Rs 5 and lunch and dinner at Rs 10, have been named after former prime minister Indira Gandhi. However, it was late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa who had first introduced the concept of subsidised canteens called ‘Amma’, set up mainly for daily wage workers and construction labourers in Chennai and other cities.
The ‘Indira’ canteens were introduced in the state budget 2017-18 and will be set up in each of the 198 wards of the Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). The state government has allocated Rs 100 crore for the project that comes ahead of the Assembly elections next year.
“I would like the government to pay special attention to this fact that the canteen should have excellent quality food, excellent hygiene and people walking out of this canteen must feel that they not only had safe food, but tasty food. I think we owe this to every single citizen,” said Gandhi.
While 101 canteens were launched today, the remaining 97 will start functioning from October 2 this year, BBMP officials told PTI. Fourteen kitchens will work round-the-clock to supply food to the canteens.
(With inputs from PTI)
