Meeting hunger pangs in Alappuzha during lockdown

Community kitchens and hunger-free food courts provide food at reasonable rate

It was just another working day for them on Thursday.

A group of seven, including four women and three men, reached the Janakeeya Adukala (community kitchen) run by the P. Krishnapillai Smaraka Trust at Mannanchery, near Alappuzha, around 6 a.m. They chopped vegetables, washed rice, and in less than five hours, meals for some 1, 300 people were ready.

The cooked food, which included boiled rice,

sambar, thoran, achar, chammanthi , among other curries, was then dispatched to various places in vehicles.

Among them are two

Janakeeya Bhakshanasalas (food courts) — near the Mannancherry bus stand and at Coir Machine Factory in Alappuzha — both launched recently as part of the State government’s Hunger-Free Kerala project.

As lunchtime neared, people started to arrive at the food court at Mannanchery, run by a Kudumbashree unit. They collected meal packets from the counter and left in no time, as no one is allowed to eat from the restaurant due to the lockdown. For those in quarantine and the needy, volunteers deliver lunch packets at their doorstep.

Ever since the government declared lockdown to check the spread of COVID-19, the small number of community kitchens and hunger-free food courts in Alappuzha are ensuring no one goes hungry, by providing food at reasonable rate. Midday meals are provided at ₹20. An additional ₹5 is charged for home delivery. For the cash-strapped, food is given free of cost.

“On Thursday, 700 lunch packets were distributed through the two janakeeya bhakshanasalas at Mannanchery and Alappuzha. Besides, food packets are delivered directly from our kitchen to health officials, the police, and those in line of duty based on bookings received. This apart, we continue to deliver free food to houses of bedridden patients and poor people at Mararikulam, Muhamma, Mannachery, and Aryad as part of the Hunger-free Mararikulam project, launched two-and-a-half years ago,” says, Riyas, patron of the P. Krishnapillai Smaraka Trust.

More join in

‘Subiksha’, a restaurant of the Kerala Food and Civil Supplies Department at Shavakottapalam here, set up as part of the hunger-free project in 2019, delivered 322 lunch packets on Thursday. Various local bodies in the district have started community kitchens to serve the poor and the needy.

Community kitchens and food courts associated with pain and palliative care units and NGOs at Pathirapally, Cherthala, among other places, too have joined the effort to feed the hungry.