LUCKNOW: After giving an extension to the free ration scheme at its first cabinet meeting, Yogi government 2.0 is proceeding to set up community kitchens across the state in order to provide food that is free of cost or highly subsidised to the poor and deprived.
The UP government has been distributing free rations to 15 crore beneficiaries every month since 2020. Under the scheme, the beneficiaries get packed 1 kg of whole chana, 1 litre of edible oil, 1 kg of salt besides 5 kg of wheat and rice per unit (family member) per month.
The community kitchen scheme would be commenced in consonance with the recent order of the Supreme Court, delivered in January, whereby the Centre was asked to start a model scheme for community kitchens across the country providing additional food grain to states to address the issues related to malnutrition.
As per official sources, the Yogi government has begun preparations to set up community kitchens in urban and rural areas to provide cooked nutritious food for free or at very nominal prices to the poor.
Then modalities to start the scheme will be chalked out at a high-level meeting shortly this week involving all the departments concerned. Different departments may be given different roles in running such kitchens, said the sources.
The sources claimed that besides the urban and rural local bodies which will be entrusted with setting up the kitchen in cities and villages respectively, food and civil supplies department will make the food grain for meals available and
Integrated Child Development Services department will ensure nutritional and caloric value of the food cooked in such community kitchens.
Issues related to the pricing per meal and the criteria of beneficiaries to get access to community kitchen would also be decided in the meeting.
In UP, the significance of such kitchens can be assessed by the fact that the state figures among over a dozen states which fall in the ‘severe’ category of malnourishment.