With 200 Amma Unavagams feeding hungry mouths across the city, it is a given that the customer service can’t be likened to that offered by private hotels. Despite the staff’s efforts to ensure quick service, patrons of the tiffin centres told Express that increasing the staff strength would really make a difference.
When this reporter stepped into one of the canteens to have a bite, he realised that the staff to customer ratio was rather lopsided. In that centre, one woman alone served the food, though the queue had around 60 people. Many of those who come to the canteen are daily-wagers and construction workers. If they stand in the queue for a long time, it cuts into their rest hour and contractors threaten to cut their pay. “If three women served food, it would avoid delay,” says Kumaran, a construction worker.
Staff members, who belong to a women’s SHG, say, “Since we have to provide food both in the morning and the afternoon, employees work in shifts of two groups, each comprising six members. While three of them prepare the food, one distributes tokens, another serves the food and a sixth person cleans the utensils. The delay in service is unavoidable.” If service time is tweaked, the unavagams will be supreme, patrons feel.