Urban Eats: How community kitchens serve workers on the move

For cycle rickshaw pullers and other 'footloose workers', subsidised meals provided at state run canteens are often the only wholesome meals they can afford

Anjor Bhaskar

A Jan Ahar Kendra in Saket, Delhi where meals are served for Rs. 10 per plate. Picture credit: Anjor Bhaskar

Rickshaw pulling is one of the most physically strenuous jobs to engage in. Yet, despite all the physical exercise, “physically fit” or “healthy” are not the words that come to mind when one thinks of the average rickshaw puller in India.

A report by the National Commission for Enterprises in the unroganised sector, on Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector explains this phenomenon as follows: "The stressful life with no rest day (as they cannot afford it) coupled with unhygienic living conditions and limited food results in poor health of most workers. Diseases like backache, tuberculosis, asthma, hernia, weak eyesight, and underweight are common. They have no medical insurance or health care facilities, forcing them to consult quacks when ill".

‘Footloose workers’ like rickshaw pullers are typically excluded or adversely included (included but under highly exploitative terms and conditions) in the market, as they are not able to earn enough to secure their own food. They are also unable to access the security offered by their communities, since they are physically away from both family and community.

State-subsidised meal programmes are extremely crucial in providing some semblance of food security to the footloose population, which is otherwise ignored by all other government food security programmes. These programmes provide wholesome meals to people who would otherwise have to skip meals or forgo expenditure on other essentials in order to fill their stomachs. Therefore, the responsibility of ensuring food security for the footloose falls upon the state.

In Jharkhand, cycle rickshaw pullers are among the greatest beneficiaries of the government's Mukhyamantri Dal Bhat Yojana, a scheme that provides a wholesome meal for just five rupees.

In early 2018, I arrived at Ranchi Railway Station for work and hailed a cycle rickshaw to take me to my accommodation. Satya Prakash was the name of the rickshaw puller in Ranchi who was ferrying me from the railway station. Prakash looked healthier than the average cycle rickshaw puller in India. Like many others, however, the rickshaw itself is his home: it is also where he sleeps at night. With the income he earns from rickshaw pulling, he may be able to afford rent for a place, but he prefers to save money to send home. He also has a huge loan to pay off:- one he took for constructing his house back in his village.

Prakash eats most of his meals at the several Mukhyamantri Dal Bhat canteens in the city. These subsidised meal canteens or community kitchens started by the government of Jharkhand.

In response to a question on his preferred canteen he mentions the one at the Khadgarha bus stand, saying it has better quantity, quality and diversity of food. He does not like the one at the railway station. Satya normally eats two plates to satisfy his appetite, and also takes a serving of egg curry for an additional cost of Rs. 10: for him, a full meal costs Rs. 20. Elsewhere, Satya says, the same would have cost Rs. 40 to 50, and not of the same quality.

Rickshaw puller Bablu waiting for passengers at the Sakchi crossing in Jamshedpur city, Jharkhand. He often buys extra plates of food from the dal bhat canteens and takes it home for his wife and children at an affordable cost of Rs 20. Photo credit: Anjor Bhaskar

Cycle rickshaw pullers are among the greatest beneficiaries of the Government of Jharkhand's Mukhyamantri Dal Bhat Yojana. But they are not the only ones.

The scheme officially targets the poor but it is additionally a boon for a specific subset of the poor: the footloose. These footloose workers comprise the city's poor population that does not have access to a kitchen, home-cooked food or accessibility to food via public provisions (such as anganwadi centres or school mid-day meals.), leaving them without food security. The “footloose”, therefore, mostly depends on cooked food from outside sources such as temples, mosques, gurudwaras, street food stalls, roadside dhabas, and low-cost restaurants. Still other means include begging for food and/or eating with friends.

A large proportion of the footloose are migrant workers (rickshaw pullers, construction workers, drivers, waste pickers); homeless people; students; or others who come to more urbanised spaces to visit hospitals, courts and government offices. Many depend on street food, which may sometimes be unhygienic and lacking in nutritive content, rendering their consumers more vulnerable to diseases and infections.

This context renders subsidised meal programmes like the Mukhyamantri Dal Bhat Yojana absolutely imperative. Interestingly, Jharkhand is not the first state to start a subsidised meal programme: in fact, state-sponsored meal programmes have a long and fascinating global history.

The Global Historical Evolution of State-Subsidised Meal Programmes

The earliest example of such subsidised restaurants are the Popular Restaurants (Restaurantes Populares) in Peru in the 1930s, started by the military ruler, Lieutenant Sanchez Cerro, and continued by his successor, General Benavides. Considering this time period followed the food riots, which occurred in Lima in 1919, as well as the Great Depression, access to nutrition was a big concern for Peru’s working class.

A British Restaurant on Woolmore Street, Poplar, London, in 1942. Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Following close on the heels of Peru's Popular Restaurants were the British Restaurants started by the government under the Prime Ministership of Churchill, and with Lord Woolton as the Minister of Food. The British Restaurants, or Community Feeding Centres, as they were initially called, were started to ensure food and nutrition security to the British industrial workforce during World War II, to ensure their health and productivity.

In India, these canteens were first started in Tamil Nadu in the 1950s. In 1995, Maharashtra started the Zunka Bhakar Canteens, followed by the start of the Annapurna Dal Bhat Yojana in Chhattisgarh in 2004, the Akshay Kaleva programme in Rajasthan in 2005, and Delhi’s Jan Ahar Yojana in 2010. Subsidised meal canteens, however, gained popularity only after the success of Tamil Nadu’s Amma Canteens in 2012, after which many more states announced such programmes.

In August 2011, the Government of Jharkhand, headed by the then Chief Minister Arjun Munda, initiated the Mukhyamantri Dal Bhat Yojana, a programme to provide a decent wholesome and hygienic meal at a nominal price to the poor in cities. The programme involved setting up outlets at various places in cities across the state. These outlets served wholesome cooked meals consisting of rice, pulses and vegetables (the staple diet in the state) at Rs. 5 per meal. These canteens, operated by women’s Self-Help Groups (SHGs), were advertised as important for both the provision of adequate food and nutrition, especially for mobile populations, as well as for women’s empowerment.

Under the policy, the government provides 200 grams of rice and 12.5 grams of soya chunks or channa, for each canteen. In addition, canteens are supposed to serve dal, vegetables, achar in each meal. The core policy objective is for these meals to fulfil peoples’ basic calorie and nutritional requirements, such that each person receives a wholesome, fulfilling meal for just five rupees.

People eating meals at the Khadgarha bus stand dal bhat canteen in Ranchi. Picture credit: Anjor Bhaskar

The Role of Subsidised Feeding Programmes During Crises

These subsidised food programmes also serve another very critical purpose: that of providing food security during crises.

As seen during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, food security is a heightened concern during crises such as floods, wars, and pandemics. On the one hand, these crises expose inequalities that have long existed (for instance, the poor and migrant workers suffering most during these crises). In addition, these crises highlight the critical role of state-subsidised meal canteens.

Chennai witnessed floods in 2021, as well as more recently, in late 2024. During both these periods, the Amma Canteens run by the Tamil Nadu government were seen as one of the best methods to provide good quality food at the lowest cost.

During the COVID-induced lockdowns, many states relied on existing canteens or established new canteens to provide people with free food.. In Karnataka, for instance, nearly 350 Indira canteens were already in operation, and were serving breakfast for Rs. 5, and lunch and dinner for Rs. 10 per meal. When the lockdown started, the Karnataka government began providing free meals to everyone through these canteens.

Similarly, in Uttar Pradesh, the Public Works Department (PWD) started running community kitchens in PWD guest houses across all 75 districts, to provide meals twice a day, together with dry rations, to those in need. In the meanwhile, the Government of Tripura set up community kitchens under the Urban Development Department in 20 urban areas, where food packets were prepared by women’s Self-Help Groups.

The economics of running community kitchens

What makes Jharkhand’s Mukhyamantri Dal Bhat Yojana so relevant is the fact that the state has one of the country’s worst development outcomes, with high levels of poverty, hunger, and starvation, coupled with high urbanisation levels. In addition, services and amenities are very heavily concentrated in urban areas. Rural areas suffer from major deficits in infrastructure and service provisioning, particularly with healthcare and administration. Therefore, a large proportion of Jharkhand’s footloose poor across its cities are likely to benefit from the community kitchen policy.

The policy largely fulfils its intention of providing food security to the most vulnerable, footloose sections. A young customer, when asked about his view on the canteens, simply said, “All izz well”.

This young customer was not alone in his view. Almost all the customers I met during my visit said the scheme is very good, and should never be stopped. Many customers were critical of various aspects of the canteens such as the quality of food, the small quantity, and the lack of infrastructure.

The meals are supposed to contain rice, dal and at least one curry (consisting of soyabean/chana). However, dal is nearly absent or extremely diluted in most of the meals. The vegetable curry contains small amounts of soyabean (never chana). What leads to this poor quality of food?

An official of the government of Jharkhand responsible for implementing the programme explained, “The canteens make sure that the food is so bad that people don’t come to eat. If people don’t come to eat, canteen operators don’t have to feed [them]. If they don’t have to feed people, they don’t use their allocated quantities of rice food and they can simply sell it off to earn a profit.”

Food at the Ranchi Institute of Medical Sciences canteen. Photo credit: Anjor Bhaskar

The second major issue is the low quantity of food served per meal. At the canteen at Ranchi’s Sadar Hospital, an elderly customer said: “The government has fixed the quantity of rice to be served for five rupees, at 200 grams. Therefore, I must get that much quantity of rice.”

Since this does not happen, most rickshaw-pullers and wage labourers who visit the canteen buy two to four plates in a day. Like the first issue, the reason for this lies in the design of the policy, which allows canteen operators to follow such practices. Reducing the quantity of rice is one of the many strategies that canteen operators use to decrease costs, increase revenues and ensure sustainability of their canteen venture.

A canteen which feeds 100 customers a day would normally earn 500 rupees in revenue. But if those 100 people need to purchase two meals for 10 rupees each, then the revenue earned from the same number of customers would double to 1000 rupees a day. Further cost savings are ensured by reducing the amount of dal provided, or making it very watery.

Canteen coordinator Manisha Gupta (right) at the Nagarmal Modi Seva Sadan canteen, Ranchi.

Picture credit: Anjor Bhaskar

The challenges of running a canteen

A lack of proper infrastructure and its management are the other major concerns faced by canteen managers. Several canteens were allocated “pukka” (concrete) structures in abandoned or vacant buildings which were old and dilapidated. Many others were allocated semi-permanent structures with tin or asbestos roofs. These roofs would get really hot in the summer, and leak during the rains.

Some canteens were even allocated spaces on footpaths, without any structures, within which canteen managers were expected to cook and store food and raw material, and serve customers. Very few of the canteens had any electricity connections to be able to connect a fan or light. Similarly, very few of them were provided with sufficient space for storing materials (like grains, utensils, stove, fuel, oils, spices, vegetables etc.).

Canteen managers often have to transport materials from their own homes or, alternatively, rent or utilise rooms available nearby. Both options involve significant extra costs. Many canteens also face material thefts: utensils, vessels, chairs, tables, and even the doors and sheets used for roofs and walls. In terms of waste, many canteens did not have any proper space or methods for disposing of food waste, or even wastewater drainage systems. This attracts flies and insects.

Finally, only some canteens are provided with sufficient space for seating customers. Others are provided with such little space that the canteens can barely accommodate 8-10 customers at once. Customers unable to find a place to sit either sat outside with their food, or pack up their food to take away.

Regardless of what they were provided, the canteen managers are supposed to make do with the infrastructure. They are expected to ensure compliance with the policy guidelines to provide good quality and hygienic food to the stipulated number of beneficiaries every day, in clean environments.

These issues arise from three primary reasons:

Lack of adequate provisions made by the state: Despite the significance of the canteens, the budgetary allocation for the policy has remained miniscule, ranging between Rs. 35-70 crores. Further, apart from provision of space and raw materials in the form of rice and soyabeans, the state does not contribute anything in terms of infrastructure, maintenance, or raw materials. This places the entire burden upon the canteen managers, and they are forced to find ways to cut costs through fraudulent means to sustain themselves and the canteens.

Lack of Accountability Mechanisms: One of the reasons for the push for engaging women’s SHGs in public programmes is to ensure bottom-up accountability. However, most canteens are operated by SHGs which exist only on paper. In reality, they are run by women appointed by an agent/ contractor to run the programme. This implies the lack of bottom-up accountability in the programmes.

Lack of Civil Society Focus: Civil society in Jharkhand is very active on issues of food security. Right to Food activists played a role in starting the policy, and even resuscitating the policy when it was stopped by the state in 2014. However, neither the civil society nor the media have raised the issue of budgetary allocations, infrastructure, and policy design. These issues have hence remained unaddressed by the government.

Edited by Namrata Raju

Anjor Bhaskar is faculty at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or the positions of the organisation they represent.