Janakeeya Hotels, under the aegis of the Kudumbashree State Mission, is celebrating its anniversary.
Started in April last year as the COVID-19 pandemic spread its tentacles, Janakeeya Hotels or ‘people’s hotels’ were meant to serve affordable meals at the rate of ₹20 per meal and ₹25 for takeaways.
Though the aim was to establish a chain of 1,000 hotels across the State, the number has reached 1,011 till now, and an average of around 1,55,000 meals are served per day.
Ernakulam and Kozhikode districts stand at the front of the number of Janakeeya Hotels. Ernakulam has a total of 106 such facilities, while Kozhikode has 103 units serving subsidised meals.
While Ernakulam hotels serve up around 12,000 meals a day, Kozhikode units feed around 20,000 persons, Kudumbashree sources said. Thiruvananthapuram and Palakkad districts too are in the front of operations to provide affordable meals.
As many as 4,430 women are involved in providing subsidised meals across the State. While rice for the programme is provided at a subsidy by Supplyco, there is also a support of ₹10 per meal for units from Kudumbashree funds.
The Kudumbashree Mission had also seen the development of software for monitoring the functioning of Janakeeya Hotels in February this year. The software helps in keeping track of all activities under the Janakeeya Hotels programme.
The Kudumbashree had bagged the National Award for implementing the National Urban Livelihoods Mission programme in Kerala for 2019-20 in the third consecutive year from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
During 2017-18, the Kudumbashree had secured the third prize and during 2018-19, it bagged the second prize in the category. The special feature of the award is that the prize money is given as additional financial allocation for project implementation.
