Fifty-three-year-old Vijayalakshmi Ulaganathan is a woman entrepreneur. This resident of Anna Nagar believes social service should be an inseparable component of business. Trained under the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamilnadu Ltd (SIPCOT), Vijayalakshmi nurtured a long-time ambition of starting a daycare centre or offer some service to senior citizens.
“It is a vast area of service,” says Vijayalakshmi, who approached V.S. Natarajan, an eminent geriatrician, for guidance.
On his suggestion, she started geriatric catering service for senior citizens. “Every day, I get at least one international call from working professionals, who ask me if I could help their parents with healthy home-cooked meals. And I started serving food to elderly citizens,” notes Vijayalakshmi, who started Chennai Geriatric Centre in 2015. The Centre is located at 18th Main Road, Anna Nagar.
“It was only after I started the service that I realised that there were many citizens who need home-cooked food delivered at their doorsteps,” she adds.
Today, she receives at least 10 calls and prepares almost 25 meals every day. In addition to a cook, there are two staff members who cut vegetables and wash the dishes. “I do the packing myself as it requires special attention while measuring the quantity and ensuring no item is missed out,” she says. She ensures preservatives are not added in the meals, less or no salt and that the food is not served too hot.
The breakfast menu consists of upma , kichdi , vada and puri , and the lunch includes rice, kozhambu , kootu , poriyal and appalam .
Dinner includes appam , idiyappam , puttu , idli and chappati. The meals are offered at a nominal price.
Customising the menu is, of course, quite a task for Vijayalakshmi. And that’s why she prefers to run the catering service on a small scale.
“Earlier, I used to customise the meals heavily. Due to staff shortage, that is difficult now. Now, I maintain a diet plan chart for various health conditions, as some are particular about salt, onions and garlic. And, I am deliberately running the business on a small scale,” she explains.
Volunteers to deliver
Cooking aside, delivery remains an unresolved challenge to Vijayalakshmi. Fortunately, her husband Ulaganathan volunteers to deliver the meals for residents in and around Anna Nagar.
Currently, she is looking for volunteers to deliver these meals to senior citizens.
“These volunteers must also be service-minded, and attend calls from elderly customers and listen to them patiently. In fact, it will be ideal to have volunteers or service-oriented people in each neighbourhood,” she says.
Vijayalakshmi is also in the process of identifying other home-entrepreneurs to connect them with senior citizens, who will require other meals and food products.
