Hi-tech machines to cut vegetables, kneading flour at Kumbh

ALLAHABAD: Hi-tech machines installed at Anna Kshetra for kneading flour and cutting vegetables are turning the volunteers’ job easy to serve at least 50,000 devotees and pilgrims daily.


For organising the Kumbh Mela's largest community feast round-the-clock, two flour kneading machines and five vegetable cutting machines are being brought from Rajkot (Gujarat) on the Om Namay Shivay campus, a non-profit organisation that holds community kitchen at Kumbh, and Ardh Kumbh at Prayag, Ujjain, Nasik and Haridwar.

Shantanu Singh, a convener of the organisation, says “Two flour kneading machines knead around 25 quintal flour daily while 30 quintal potato, 300 kg tomatoes, 50 kg ginger and 10 kg chillies are also being cut by vegetable cutting machines daily.” He added, “automatic hi-tech machines have made volunteers' task easy and we are able to serve more and more devotees.”

Singh, meanwhile, added: “Around 500 volunteers in terms of cook are being engaged to prepare dishes for 50,000 devotees every day who usually wake up at 3am in the morning and take out first meals at around 8am to serve the food to the pilgrims”.

He also added, “As many as 10 community feast camps are being run by the organisation at different sectors round the clock and all community kitchens would be functional till Maghi Purnima on the mela campus.”

“The strength of devotees increases manifold on main snan days and reach up to one to 1.5 lakh and we feel happy to serve them food," said Shantanu, adding, around 5,000 volunteers from all across the country have joined us to serve the food to the devotees at all the 10 camps of the organisation,” he added. The food menu includes, puri, kachori, pulav, rajma, boondi , and gulab jamun.