Citizens will have two additional items on the menu for breakfast at Indira Canteens soon: two slices of bread and jam, and mangaluru buns, along with the existing menu of idlis, pongal, kharabath, bisibelebath, and vegetable pulav.
With the Congress, who launched the Indira Canteens with much fanfare, back in the saddle, the canteens are not only being revived and expanded but their menu is also being revamped. The city’s civic body is all set to call for new tenders for providing food, and running the canteens at the zonal level next week.
For lunch and dinner, the civic body will introduce ragi mudde and soppu saaru as an option on the menu, which will be available every alternate day, while on other days, chapati-sagu or chapati with veg gravy will be available apart from the white rice and vegetable sambar on the menu now. The civic body will also introduce a sweet – kheer – only for lunch five days a week.
While a proposal to provide boiled eggs was discussed within the ruling party forums, no such proposal was made in the recent meeting chaired by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on revamping Indira Canteens, sources said. “Providing boiled eggs would cost the exchequer dearly. No such proposal was discussed officially. Moreover, the concept of Indira Canteens is to provide subsistence food, and not luxurious food,” a senior civic official said.
Chief Civic Commissioner Tushar Giri Nath had recently said that the cost of the meals for citizens would remain the same – ₹5 for breakfast, and ₹10 each for lunch and dinner, totalling ₹25. “We have decided to increase the number of items available for dinner, and also the quantum of food to be served,” he said. He added that to the ₹25 that would be paid by the citizens, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) would give an additional subsidy of ₹42, fixing the total cost of a three meals per person for the contractor at ₹67.
A total of 175 canteens that are running will be revamped after fixing all funding gaps. The water connection to several canteens was cut owing to non-payment of dues. Over 20 canteens that were shut down during the BJP regime will be revived. Apart from them, an additional 50 canteens will be built in the city, taking the total number to 250. The canteens were planned as one per ward in the city. The number of wards have now increased from 198 to 243.
“We are yet to decide whether to build the new canteens also in the pre-built assembly model like other canteens. Some of these canteens will be built at places with high footfall like bus stations, railway stations, and government hospitals among others,” said K.V. Trilok Chandra, Special Commissioner (Health), BBMP.
The civic body had struggled to find suitable space to build the canteens in several wards, forcing them to allot mobile canteens to nearly 30 wards, an experiment that seems to have failed compared to other canteens. The civic body is now trying to identify suitable locations to build these 50 new canteens. “We will issue tenders to build these new canteens very shortly, once we identify locations, and secure those land parcels for the same,” Mr. Chandra said.
