GADAG: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s ambitious plan to introduce meals under `10 through Namma Canteens in Bengaluru wards may have drawn praise. But a public trust in Gadag has been offering unlimited meals, and that too, at half the price.
Sree Annapoornaeshwari Prasad Nilaya, a service wing of the Sree Ramakrishna Seva Pratisthana, has been serving tasty and filling meals for just `5 to the needy and poor. It provides free meals to the aged, weak and patients at hospitals and their caretakers. Schoolgirls get the same deal at just `2. This lunch called ‘prasad’ is distributed every day between 1 pm and 3 pm on the premises of the old district hospital near Gandhi Circle here.
“My wife is admitted in a nearby hospital for an operation. We are having our meals here at `5 and we get nice and hygienic food. The trust also gave free take-away for my wife as she is under treatment,” says Maruti Kalsannavar, a resident of Mallasamudra village.
According to the Trust members, the service was undertaken as an attempt to make Gadag a hunger-free city. The experiment began on January 20 last year and has been going on successfully. The trust is able to carry out this service through the patronage of its 300 donors. Every day, more than 600 people take their rice-sambhar-pickle meal here. A prayer is sung in praise of Goddess Annapoorneshwari before the meal. Two volunteers from Arya Samaj, Subradakka and Shailaja, serve the meals. Manjunath Haddannavar, who started this project, has been actively engaged in serving specially challenged people.