Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government said on Tuesday it could provide land to establish the kitchen of the community proposed at the center, while repeated capital and expenditure must be borne by the Government Government.
Speaking at a meeting organized by the Union Piyush Minister of Goyer with the state’s food ministers to discuss “community kitchen models to overcome hunger and malnutrition in the country,” State Food Minister R Sakkarapani said the kitchen community must be open to everyone.
“Our experience is that only the most appropriate people come to this facility.
Therefore, making it limit based on some exclusion criteria may not be needed,” Minister said.
While the kitchen community becomes significantly important during natural disasters, the minister said the scheme must be flexible in terms of increasing their number and inventory.
In Tamil Nadu, the state government provides three meals in the Amma canteen in Chennai, and two meals elsewhere.
Sakkarapan said that at least two meals must be provided through a community kitchen.
For extensive countries such as India, a uniform system or single model may not be desirable.
“It will be appropriate that countries must be given freedom and flexibility in a broad framework and guidelines to decide on the actual model and the functioning of the kitchen of the community,” said Sakkarapani.
The Tamil Nadu government has ran around 650 kitchens of the community, also known as Amma canteen, throughout the state, providing subsidized food to the poor and in need.
Of these, 403 was run in Chennai, 105 in 14 corporate city, 138 in the city and four in Panchayats village.
These include canteens run in government hospitals for patient and patient officials.
Food is free during natural disasters.
Sakkarapani said the state government and local bodies have spent RS 300 Crore towards the implementation of this scheme every year.
The DMK government also proposes to open 500 kitchen communities better known as “unavagam kaaignar.”