The Kudumbasree Mission launched ‘Food on Wheels,’ a novel project to distribute food at important locations in the city in specially designed vehicles, in Kozhikode Corporation exactly 10 months ago. A project of the Gender Park to provide employment to women, ‘Food on Wheels’ ironically ended with the launch function amidst huge fanfare and enough media reports.
It is known that the untimely demise of this project had a lot to do with the transfer of the then Kudumbasree Project Officer of the Corporation M.V. Ramsi Ismail. The allegations of corruption in connection with the e-shop project at the time led to a lot of protests from the Opposition councillors and ultimately pushed the new projects into cold storage.
Despite the launch function, Kudumbasree now claims that it was a mere introduction of the project. “There had been a slight delay in executing the project. But there are plans to revive it. A meeting was held on March 13 to discuss the revival. ‘Food on Wheels’ project in Kozhikode is likely to be centred at Valiyangadi, Vaikom Muhammed Basheer Road and Annie Hall Road,” said present Kudumbasree Project Officer of the Corporation (in-charge) T.R. Balan.
New project?
Former District Mission Coordinator of Kudumbasree Mohammed Faisal hinted at a completely new project on the lines of what the Gender Park had proposed, yet low cost, so that it would not propel the beneficiaries towards huge debts.
“The plan is to distribute food from the Kudumbasree Cafes in vehicles. It will be run completely by the Kudumbasree members in the Corporation and using Kudumbasree funds,” he said.
However, the Opposition has a different take on the issue. “They were trying to use the Kudumbasree members to sell products of multinational companies. They did not get enough applicants for the project and hence did not take off,” said councillor N.C. Moyinkutty, who had fought for the e-shop owners many a time in the council.
Whether it is to be revived, to be run by the Gender Park or the Corporation, the officials did not have a clear idea about ‘Food on Wheels’ which shares the plight of many much-hyped projects in the city.
