From now on, everyday, piping hot lunch cooked in the state-of-the-art kitchen of at Patancheru will be served to the attendants of patients at Niloufer Hospital.
On a daily basis, close to 1,000 new cases get admitted to the hospital. Now, the attendants of these patients will be able to relish the clean and nutritious food without having to worry about shelling hard earned cash for it.
This is not all. Very soon, ‘Bhojanamrita' free food programme, launched at Niloufer Hospital on Sunday, will be introduced at Gandhi and Osmania General Hospitals. Everyday, attendants, who can hardly afford to buy food once in a day, will be provided free lunch.
Kitchen at Patancheru
The unique programme, taken up by Hare Krishna Movement (HKM), Hyderabad, an ISKCON, Bangalore initiative, was launched by Minister for Civil Supplies, D. Sridhar Babu. The HKM collaborating with city-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd. (MEIL) to make it possible to supply quality lunch to 1,000 attendants daily.
While MEIL will provide financial support for one-year, the actual preparation of food will be carried out at the hi-tech kitchen managed by HKM at Patancheru. The kitchen is already being used to prepare food under the midday meal scheme for 40,000 children in the capital and the nearby Medak district.
“This initiative was possible because of MEIL and the State government. In few months, we will launch a similar programme at Gandhi Hospital and OGH. Already, we are feeding 250 in-patients at Basavatarakam Indo-American Cancer Hospital,” said president, HKM, Hyderabad, Satya Gaura Chandra Dasa.
Additional beds
Civil Supplies Minister Sridhar Babu after inaugurating ‘Bhojanamrita', lauded ISKCON for taking up the initiative. “Hopefully you would be able to implement programme in all tertiary government hospitals. By November, we also hope that 450 additional beds will be added to Niloufer hospital when the construction of the new building will be finished,” he said.
Representative from MEIL, Ravi P. Reddy, city Mayor Mohammad Majeed Hussain, MLA, Virasat Rasool Khan, Special Chief Secretary, Health, Medical and Family Welfare, G. Sudheer and others were present.
