The State government will open 200 Anna canteens in 17 cities and towns across the State on October 2. The government will also launch the Anna Canteen Foundation to run the canteens. The foundation will collect donations from philanthropists on the lines of Nityannadanam scheme of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD).
The Civil Supplies and Municipal Administration Departments would jointly manage the canteens with assistance of voluntary organisations such as Iskcon and Akshaya Patra.
The government is planning to serve idli, upma, sambar, chutney as breakfast. Rice, curry, chutney, sambar, buttermilk or curds in lunch will be served. And for this, centralised kitchens will be opened in all the 13 districts. The canteens will serve the needs of 1.4 crore population.
The government is expecting that it will incur an expenditure of ₹148 crore on the Anna canteens during the remaining seven months of this fiscal. The government will spend ₹50 crore to ₹75 crore for pre-fabricated construction of canteens. It is estimated that each canteen will cost ₹25 lakh to ₹50 lakh. About 350 people can be accommodated in each canteen at a time. Depending upon the demand and rush, number of canteens will be increased.
Review meet
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu held a review meeting on Anna canteens at the Secretariat on Monday.
The government was still in the first gear all these days though the State Cabinet had approved the proposal in 2014 for the Anna canteens. The government launched only one canteen, that too at Velagapudi near the Interim Government Complex (IGC), in June. In 2014, it announced that 15 centres would be opened in Visakhapatnam, 10 in Guntur and five each in Tirupati and Anantapur in Phase I.
There was a proposal to serve lunch with all dishes such as curry, chutney and sambar, but the officials negated it saying different types of rice — sambar rice, tamarind rice and curd rice — could be served. The Group of Ministers (GoM) also toyed with the idea of providing region-specific food.
