Skip to main content

How the Indira Canteen is a Failure and a Success

Image result for indira canteen
Source

Indira Canteen is a fast food joint that has been touted as CM Siddaramaiah's pet project in the city of Bengaluru, Karnataka. The canteen aims to serve 500 people per meal per day. Rahul Gandhi inaugurated this populist scheme of the Congress led Karnataka Government on Independence Day 2017. This was done in run up to the Karnataka Assembly Elections that is taking place five days from today. All 197 wards have their own Indira Canteen, built at a cost of approximately INR 30 lakhs each {1}.
The setting up of this canteen is obviously to reduce hunger among the poor. Indira Canteen serves food at heavily subsidized rates by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike. Breakfast can be availed at Rs. 5 and lunch at Rs. 10.

The entire scheme has been well thought of and according to reports has been running smoothly{2}. The canteens are still operational (this is itself a major win for the Government), food is being cooked at remote locations by companies to whom this job has been tendered out to and every day the canteen sells all the prepared items on time.
Image result
Source

While I am glad that the Government has been able to successfully implement this scheme in a short period of time, a few things need to be questioned.
This canteen has obviously been constituted to serve people who cannot afford three meals a day. However, there is no restriction on who can avail subsidized meals at canteen locations. A minimum wage earner who struggles to feed himself and his family should obviously be served meals at the canteen. If he makes it in time and joins the queue early enough, he will be fed. Otherwise if 500 people beat him to buying food, he has to go hungry that day. When a scheme like this is implemented in which good food that fills an appetite is served at dirt cheap prices, relatively richer people such as auto-rickshaw drivers, car-drivers, plumbers, servicemen who can afford to eat elsewhere chose to eat in the Indira Canteen instead of paying a slight premium elsewhere. They are not to blame. The CM said that through Indira Canteens poor people would be able to afford food. However, putting a cap of just 500 meals per canteen is not justified when the aim is to feed all and eradicate hunger. It is not known by many people who do not use this service that there is a cap on the number of meals served. On the face of it, this project is commendable and worthy of everyone's praise. But it is not.

The population of Bengaluru is 1.23 crores {3}. For ease of calculation assume that people are equally divided among the 197 wards. That comes to around 60,000 people per ward. Indira Canteens only serves around 0.83% of the people in each ward due to the 500 meals restriction. A 2016 report states that India has a population in which around 30% of the people are living Below the Poverty Line (BPL) {4). A 2017 report says that the urban population living BPL is around 35% {5}. According to our calculation that amounts to 21,000 people are living BPL in each ward. Assuming that a rule is instated that only BPL people can use the canteen, they can still serve just 2.3% of the 21,000 people per ward. Yes, in a real life scenario, all 1.23 crore people are not equally divided among all wards. That actually worsens the whole thing. In population dense areas, a lower percentage of the already low percentage of people will be able to get affordable food.

At the beginning of this article, I said that the Government's train of thought is questionable. Did the Government create this project to satisfy the hunger of individuals who are poor? Did the Government realise that this project will be beneficial to only a small number of lucky people who reach early enough to have food? Did the Government think it through in terms of who can and who cannot avail these services? Did the Government, sitting in their air conditioned rooms, traveling in SUV's 'gifted' to them by industrialists and living a luxurious life in their humongous bungalows realise that there is a huge number of people who can benefit from these canteens, if not for the excessive subsidy that scants the number of people who it can benefit?

I'll let you answer these question on 12th May, 2018 when you go to vote and make your choice!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Visiting the Kasturinagar (KA-03) RTO - a tumultuous but manageable experience to get a Learner's/ Driver's License without an agent/ driving school

Ask anyone, and I can guarantee that they will have a story (and in most cases, many stories) about their trip, or rather, numerous trips to the RTO for something as simple as getting a Learner's License (LL) or a Driver's License (DL). In this blog, I hope to make your life a tad bit easier by guiding you through the entire process, which may seem easy at first but is full of (overcome able) challenges if you know what you are doing. I turned 18 in January this year, and besides cutting a cake, I worked on my LL application online. I challenged myself to complete the entire LL to DL process by myself and without the help of an agent or a driving school, unlike what the majority do. The lengthy application process and multiple visits to the RTO, impressed upon me why most people decided to pay a little extra to get an agent to do it for them. Still, I was determined not to pay a single rupee more than the official cost. I succeeded.  Do note that this answer is concerning the K

Kicking off a 'political career' in an idea-based, grassroots level political party

Despite having been following politics for the longest time, and now studying it full time, I never joined a political party. When people used to ask me "who do you support?", my answer was standard, "no one". Luckily for me, ever since turning 18 and being eligible to vote, there hasn't been an election in which I'd be forced to cast my vote and tell people that I have made a definitive choice about a particular political party. At a time when politics has become ever so polarising and dirty, I couldn't be happier to associate myself with the BNP. It was in February 2020 that I was introduced to the Bengaluru NavaNiramana Party. I found their vision, leadership and ideas incredibly refreshing. Though I was aware of their launch/ kickoff meeting that took place in Freedom Park in early 2020, due to a friend's TEDx talk taking place simultaneously, I could not attend. Then, between Board Exams and the lockdown that took us all by surprise, I forgot ab

2011 Ooty Golf Championship Open

We had gone to Mangalore to visit my mother's relatives. We stayed there for 2 days. Then we left to Ooty for my Ooty Tournament. Here is what we did: Day 1 It was a long drive from Mangalore to Ooty, it is 360 Kms. We left at 5:30 a.m from Mangalore and reached our homestay at 4:00 p.m. I explored the house and then started to read my book. Here are a few pictures we had taken on the way to Ooty:  A tree with no leaves  The Beautiful Sky  After a while we went to a super market to buy a few things. Then we went to a leather shop. Over there I bought a leather belt. Then we  went to Dominos Pizza to have dinner. After that we headed back to our homestay. Day 2 (Practise Round and much more) I woke up at 7:15 a.m. I got ready fast and then had my breakfast. After that my sister, father and I left to the golf course for the practise round. When we reached there we first registered for the tournament and then started to play. My father came with my sister and me o

Living life out of a suitcase

  December 2022 As I sit on my fourteenth flight for the year, with two more scheduled before the curtains are drawn on 2022 (god bless my carbon footprint), laptop open, a glass of wine and a blank word document, I begin to ponder over my journey over the last few months. Penning it down and (at the risk of sounding philosophical) ‘reflecting’ on this journey seems imperative.  --- May 2022   After two wonderful years of ups and downs in Le Havre (thank you, COVID-19!), I said my good-byes, packed my bags and was on the train to Paris. But that was not my final destination – for now at least. After spending two nights at a friend’s, dropping my baggage off at a relative’s, catching the French Open and a round of golf in the middle, and a train to Beauvais (an hour north of Paris), I was on a flight to Barcelona. Checked in to my hostel, met my friend, went for 3 days of the Barcelona Formula 1 Grand Prix together, watched a Redbull 1-2 finish, celebrated with beer, sangria and tapas,

Ather Energy - Electric Scooters that compete with Aprilias and Vespas

Ather Energy, a Bengaluru based start up created by former IITians finally unveiled their electric scooters - Ather 340 and the Ather 450. Priced slightly on the higher side at INR 1.09 L and 1.24L (on road - Bengaluru) including the FAME subsidy and all taxes, the scooters are exciting and a must try for scooter buyers who do not mind shelling out a little more money than a mid-range scooter would cost and do not mind using it primarily for short distance commutes. Ather 450 Their showroom is located on 100ft Road in Indiranagar. You can visit them at any time and their staff is extremely accomadating and will help you with any queries that you may have. If there is not too much of a crowd, they will allow you to take a test ride too. Ather opened their showroom today (8th, June, 2018). I visited them and was mighty pleased with what they were doing. In an interesting conversation with Mr. Swapnil Jain , the humble and down to earth Co-Founder and CTO, I learnt a lot abo

Photos

These are a few photos that I took:

Decentralized Social Network - Sphere

The world has been witnessing paradigm shifts in certain ways of executing day to day activities over the past few decades. Taxis are now being hailed with a smartphone, without even communicating over voice with the driver. Food is being ordered online and delivered by delivery boys who rely on a digital map to navigate to the place of delivery. CDs and cassettes have been replaced by computers and phones. Film cameras have been replaced by DSLRs. Gone are the days when cheques were sent via post and deposited into the bank a few days (or even weeks) later. IMPS, NEFT and other methods of transferring money have become popular. The Digital Revolution has truly changed the way we do many things. While the first decade and a half of the 21st Century dealt with merely digitizing the world, in recent years "Decentralization" has become an idea that many people are embracing and promoting. The Block Chain Technology that has gone hand in glove with many aspects of Decentralizati