Community kitchens feed lakhs everyday

Prayagraj: The community kitchens set up by seers or social organisations at the sprawling Magh Mela campus are working earnestly to provide delicious and hygienic food to lakhs of devotees and followers visiting the camps. With most holding bhandaras twice-a-day, a huge quantity of ration is consumed in the kitchen of these camps. The consumption varies from camp to camp. Some use 200 kgs of flour and 50 kgs of rice others use as much as 500 kg of flour per day and 125 kg of rice and 50 kg of pulses, leave alone the veggies that are consumed every day. The Om Namah Shivay that runs five distributing points at sector 1 and 2 of the Magh Mela area, opens their service at 7 am and continues to serve devotees throughout the day. The hi-tech machines installed at Anna Kshetra of this organisation helps the cooks prepare food for around 50-60,000 devotees on any normal day while on a major bathing day, the number increases to anything around 1.5 lakh.
“We have been serving food to lakhs of devotees in the Magh Mela and for the same, having a huge quantity of ration is a prime requirement. On a daily basis, we use anything around 30-40 quintals of potato, 60-65 quintal of rice and around 50 quintals of flour,” said Deepak of Om Namah Shivay camp.
This camp has machines for grinding spices, roti and poori makers, potato and pea peeling machines, flour-kneading machines and automatic vegetable cutters at community kitchen.
Likewise, at the Charkhi Dadri Ashram (Haryana) in sector 5, community food requires quite a bulk of food items.
“We prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner for around 1,000 people daily and strength goes up on main snan days. We ensure that all devotees and seers coming to the ashram during the day do not return empty stomach,” said Manoj, a volunteer. “We love to cook and serve visitors. After serving these saints and seers for so many years, I am well acquainted with their taste,” said Narayan who claims that he learnt cooking when he was just 15-year-old. “My team members and I wake up at 3:30 am and cook food for over 1,000-1,500 devotees every day and this requires around 20 quintal of flour every day and likewise veggies too,” he added.