Meals @Rs 10 in Samridhi: One year of serving comfort food

KOCHI: The corporation’s ‘Samridhi@Kochi’ hotel that offers low-budget meals at `10 has completed one year of service. The hotel, situated at Paramara Road near North Town Hall, served meals to 10 lakh people in the last six months. The number of women employees at the hotel has gone up from 13 to 50.
Cochin Shipyard MD Madhu S Nair will inaugurate Samridhi’s first anniversary programme to be held on Saturday.

“The hotel is doing a fine business. We get groceries at subsidised rates, therefore have not incurred any loss. We don’t have to pay rent as the place is owned by the corporation,” said Kochi corporation councillor Sheeba Lal, who is in charge of the hotel.

Owing to the huge response to the ‘Hunger-Free Kochi’ project, the corporation plans to expand its service to the West Kochi area. “We’re in the process of identifying land to open the eatery,” said Sheeba.
“We started the hotel by serving meals at `10 (takeaway `15) which includes rice, curry, a side dish, pickle and pappad. Later, we upgraded the menu with breakfast and dinner items. For lunch, we also started offering non-vegetarian curries. Now, Samridhi is open till 8.30pm. It also offers catering services,” said Sheeba. “We also plan to introduce beef pothichoru option to the existing chicken and veg pothichoru,” she said.

“There is a huge rush at the hotel from 1pm till 2.30pm. Chappati-veg/non-veg curry, rice porridge and live masala dosa are available in the evening at an affordable price,” said Varghese Thomas, an autorickshaw driver and regular customer at the eatery. The ‘Hunger-Free Kochi project was announced in last year’s budget.