CHENNAI: Fifty-seven-year old and homeless, Abdul Khader recently moved his sleeping spot from the shade of a bus shelter to the pavement in Vyasarpadi. Reason: He can rush to the Amma canteen opposite the pavement before the breakfast vessels go empty.
“Ever since they announced that food would be free of cost in Amma canteens, the staff here say they’ve run out of breakfast within an hour of opening. So, I decided to sleep here itself, so that I won’t go hungry,” said Khader while standing outside the canteen in Sathiamurthy Nagar in Vyasarpadi.
By 6.30 in the morning, a train of people appear in front of the canteens in Sathiamurthy Nagar and Mahakavi Bharathi Nagar, even though the canteens open only at 7 am. Similar queues await lunch and dinner services here.
However, worries about filling the stomach over takes the concerns about contracting the lungs-infecting coronavirus, as people neglect social distancing and wearing a face mask. Similar queues for food are often seen in Tondiarpet, Royapuram and Thiru Vi K Nagar zones, which are the most-affected Covid hot spots.
K Sekaran, who is also a coordinator of the Tamil Nadu Street Vending Workers Federation, said that he waits in line at 6:30 am for breakfast, 11 am for lunch and 5:30 pm for dinner. “They start dinner service at 6 pm, but if you come at 7 pm, you won’t get anything,” he said about the canteen in Mahakavi Bharathi Nagar.
“When the food was chargeable, we did not have this problem. Once it became free, we have to wait in queue. If we had known this would be the case, we would have preferred to pay for food because the charges were nominal,” he added. A senior Chennai Corporation official, however, said this may be a problem in some of the economically backward pockets of the city. “I don’t think this is a widespread phenomenon in the other parts of the city and may be restricted to the poorer pockets. We will look into it,” he said.