A day after Independence Day celebrations, 101 Indira Canteens will begin serving affordable food to citizens across Bengaluru. However, this will be 24 canteens less than the 125 canteens that the BBMP had hoped to get ready by this time.
When the canteens were mooted a few months, the BBMP had announced that 198 canteens would be set up by Independence Day but later brought down the target to 125 after facing difficulties in getting land for the canteens in all the wards.
Despite being plagued by criticism, delays and missed deadlines, civic officials are patting themselves on their backs at getting close to their target.
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“We received the orders on June 12 and in 60 days we have worked harder than ever to achieve this. Yesterday [Friday], work on the 86th canteen was completed,” said Mayor G. Padmavathi on Saturday.
The canteens will initially be supplied by six kitchens which are ready to serve 5,000 to 6,000 plates of food every day. Eventually, the number of kitchens will increase to 14.
The canteens will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner at prices as low as ₹5 and ₹10. This is possible with a subsidy by the government of around ₹32 per person for all three meals.
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Discussing the quality of food, BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunatha Prasad said, “There is a standard operating procedure rulebook that all the staff has been trained to follow. This will ensure quality of the food.” A BBMP app will help people find the nearest canteen based on their location.
According to BBMP, the remaining 97 canteens will come up by October 2. While sites for 181 canteens have been identified, a lot of sites have faced stiff opposition because of their location within parks or in other such public places.
Work on building around 24 canteens had to be called off after commencement due to various issues, which has affected the target of 125 canteens by August 16, Ms. Padmavathi said.
‘Black spots cleared’
Responding to protests in several areas against the coming up of these canteens in public spaces, Ms. Padmavathi said that the BBMP had also chosen several black spots and spots where public urination was a problem to set up the canteens.
“This has helped beautify the area. For example, in Murphy Town, the spot chosen had become a place for illegal activities. In Cantonment area, the canteen will come up at a big black spot as well,” she said.
Mr. Prasad also said that the location of canteens within parks, while not happening yet, should not be viewed as a problem by citizens.
“The poorer class of people have as much of a right to public spaces as the other classes. No one objected to a HOPCOMS or a Nandini booth in parks. We built public gymnasiums and no one had an issue, why is it happening with canteens. We have not broken any rules for locating our canteens,” he said.
Mechanised washing of plates
The canteens will feature a display board counting down the number of plates sold so that people will not have to stand in line only to find out that the food is exhausted.
Currently, the canteens will serve 500 plates of food as part of their budgetary allocation and this is likely to be increased in the future.
“We will bear the costs of setting up the canteen, buying equipment and other costs so that the operator has to focus solely on manpower and stocks for one month,” Mr. Prasad added.
The kitchens will have features like mechanised steam based cooking while the canteens will have mechanised cleaning of plates. The kitchens will cost around ₹1 crore each while the canteens will cost ₹28.5 lakh for each one.