CHENNAI: Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, on her first day in office on Sunday, inaugurated 201 more Amma canteens across the State through video conferencing facility at the Secretariat. With this, the number of Amma canteens has gone up from 297 to 498.
The canteens inaugurated on Sunday include 45 in Chennai, four each in Coimbatore, Madurai, Thanjavur and Dindigul, 128 in 124 municipalities and 23 in government general hospitals in district headquarters.
In these people-friendly canteens, idlis and pongal are served at `1 and `5 respectively for breakfast. Sambar rice, lemon rice and curry leaves rice at `5 each and curd rice at `3 are served for lunch and two chapathis with a cup of dhal for `3 are served for dinner. Poor and downtrodden people, daily wage workers, drivers, loadmen and others who earn low wages are benefitted
to a great extent by these canteens.
The scheme was launched by Jayalalithaa on February 19, 2013 and since then, the number of Amma canteens has incresed to 207 in Chennai. Other Corporations in the State are running 90 such canteens. Accepting requests from people who visit government hospitals, Jayalalithaa inaugurated Amma canteens at Rajiv Gandhi government general hospital, Stanley government hospital and Egmore Children’s hospital in Chennai and at Rajaji hospital in Madurai during 2013-14.
Drawn by the overwhelming response for the scheme, officials from Egypt visited these canteens to study the possibility of starting similar canteens in their country. Besides, officials from Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan, Karnataka, AP and Punjab also visited and appreciated the manner in which they are run.