Despite earlier opposition, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is again contemplating handing over the Indira Canteens to ISKCON.
There are 174 fixed Indira Canteens and 24 mobile canteens serving lakhs of citizens, mostly belonging to lower socio-economic groups in the city. Currently, three agencies — Chef Talk, Rewards, and Adamya Chetana — are providing food to the Indira Canteens.
The tender of these service providers ended in August last, said Thulasi Maddineni, BBMP’s Special Commissioner (Finance). This year, the BBMP had earmarked ₹60 crore in the 2022-23 budget for running the Indira Canteens.
BBMP’s Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta confirmed the development and stated that the civic body was yet to take a call on handing over the canteens to ISKCON. “We have seen that commercial-minded agencies may cut corners, which will not be the case with philanthropic organisations, since the canteens service the underprivileged section of society. Our objective is to ensure that quality food that is tasty is made available to this section,” he said.
Reasons for BBMP exploring handing over the canteens to ISKCON included quality issues and dip in patronage. While the canteens were the mainstay for many during the lockdown period, over the past few months, the patronage has come down. From an average of around 350 persons before lockdown, patronage reduced to just around 100-150 per canteen now, civic officials admitted.
According to Uday Kumar from Rewards, which provides food to 49 canteens across Yelahanka, Dasarahalli, Rajarajeshwarinagar, and Mahadevapura zones, all three meals at the canteens cost around ₹55.30 per day. The BBMP gives the service providers ₹30.30, while the remaining ₹25 is collected from patrons. He admitted that with bills pending since April last, the service providers were struggling to maintain consistency in quality and taste.
Admitting that maintaining the canteens, which was a welfare scheme launched by the Congress government helmed by Siddaramaiah, was not BBMP’s obligatory duty, Mr. Gupta said the civic body was keeping it running in the interest of the economically weaker sections.
Sources said that the canteens were backed politically earlier. However, the BJP government now wants to do nothing with the Indira Canteens — neither be associated with it, close it down nor change the name. “The State Government has also not been providing any funds to keep the canteens going. The entire spend is being borne by the BBMP over the past few years,” sources said.
Incidentally, it is ISKCON that is providing food to the 18,000-odd pourakarmikas in the BBMP. The pourakarmikas complain about the food that is being supplied, said Nirmala M., president of BBMP Pourakarmikara Sangha. She said that the lack of onion, garlic and other masala that is commonly used is missing in ISKCON’s food, making it “tasteless”.
