Chennai: Chief Minister M K Stalin inspected an ‘Amma Unavagam’ (Amma canteen) on Friday and instructed the staff to maintain cleanliness and hygiene in the kitchen and dining area besides announcing Rs 21 crore for the development of the Corporation-run food outlets that have been serving food at low prices for the benefit of the urban poor since February, 2013.
The flagship welfare programme of the AIADMK government, launched during the tenure of J Jayalalithaa with much fanfare as a hunger alleviation project, continued even after the DMK came to power though there were complaints of neglect of the canteens by the government. Soon after the government took charge in 2021, there was an incident of a DMK worker trying to remove the board of a canteen since it had Jayalalithaa’s picture.
But that board was restored at its perch and the canteens also continued to function, serving the urban poor breakfast, lunch and dinner at affordable prices. However, the government did not give any visible special attention to develop the project till Friday.
Now, the Chief Minister, who visited the outlet at Teynampet (ward 122) in Chennai, has instructed Ministers, MLAs and local body representatives to periodically visit the Amma canteens and give feedback to the authorities for their upkeep and development.
He also sanctioned Rs 7 crore for the purchase of new utensils and vessels as the old one had worn out over the years and another Rs 14 crore for renovating the canteens.
An official press release said there were 388 Amma canteens in the 200 wards in Chennai and in the seven government hospitals, serving an average of 1,05,000 diners daily, which meant that in one year food was served nearly four crore times.
The supplies like rice, dhal and other groceries are supplied by the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation, the LPG cylinders by the Triplicane Town Cooperative Society and curd by Aavin, incurring an expenditure of Rs 469 crore since May 2021.
Women from the Self-Help Groups (SHGs) who work in the canteens are paid Rs 300 a day and in the last one year alone Rs 148.4 crore has been spent on that.
The Chief Minister himself making efforts personally to restore and develop a welfare project addressing urban poverty, despite it being named after J Jayalalithaa, who was endearingly called as Amma by her followers, was perhaps a strategy of the DMK to win over the AIADMK supporters.
Perhaps it was a lesson learnt from the recent by-election of the Vikravandi Assembly constituency where the DMK had managed to garner a sizable amount of votes that had hitherto gone to the AIADMK. So to attract at least a section of the AIADMK votes towards it in the post-Jayalalithaa phase, the DMK might have thought that it can harness the popularity of ‘Amma’ by developing the canteens and perpetuating her memory.
At the time of the launch of the 'Amma Canteens' project, the media had gone gaga over it praising the vision behind the conception of the idea that was enabling children from poor homes to have low cost breakfast when the mothers leave for work early in the day.
