JOIN USIndira Canteens which provide wholesome food at affordable rates to the underprivileged in urban areas are on the verge of closure with the state government failing to make any budgetary allocation for the past three years. A brainchild of the previous Siddaramaiah government, the canteens launched in 2017 are a boon to daily wage earners and migrant labour, especially in Bengaluru where a majority of them are located. Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa has adopted a step-motherly attitude towards Indira Canteens right from the start, perhaps wary that the credit would go the previous Congress regime. First, the rates were doubled and then, during the lockdown, when they emerged as the only source of succour to jobless migrant workers, they were abruptly ordered shut, after the government initially announced that food would be provided free of cost. Though the project has not been officially scrapped, it has been left gasping for funds.
So far, the contractors have managed to run the canteens by obtaining bank overdrafts or by dipping into their own resources, hoping that the government would release funds soon. In Bengaluru alone, the government owes the contractors over Rs 200 crore. Naturally, hygiene and quality which were once the buzz words at the canteens, have now taken a beating with the contractors forced to cut corners to make ends meet. The government’s excuse that it lacks sufficient funds has no takers because a state with a budget outlay of nearly Rs 2.5 lakh crore cannot claim that it is unable to spare a mere Rs 300 crore required to run the canteens. It is not just the labour class that has been at the receiving end, the government has been pulled up by Karnataka High Court more than once for its failure to effectively implement the mid-day meal scheme for school children during the pandemic.
According to the United Nations, food security means that all people at all times have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food. With this in mind, the previous administration had drawn up an integrated plan to create a ‘hunger free Karnataka’, by providing nutritious food to rural families, school children, lactating mothers and urban poor. The attitude of the present government which has hit the poor where it hurts the most, smacks of not just callousness, but a total lack of humanity. At least, when it comes to welfare schemes like feeding hungry stomachs, Yediyurappa should set aside politics and release funds immediately so that Indira Canteens can be saved from certain death.