The Hindu 18.05.2013
Affordable food coming your way
Jayalalithaa may open ‘Amma Unavagam’ during her Srirangam visit.
Amma Unavagam, which has proved a hit with Chennai
residents, will soon start functioning in the city with the
Tiruchirapalli City Corporation determined to create the necessary
infrastructure for the budget canteens.
The canteens
sell idlis for one rupee a piece and sambar and curd rice at Rs.3 a
plate. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa recently announced that the
restaurants would be opened in nine other municipal corporations across
the State, including Tiruchi.
According to the
corporation sources, work on the buildings is in full swing. With the
Chief Minister scheduled to visit Srirangam to inaugurate and lay the
foundation for various projects in her constituency on May 24, the
corporation is pulling out all stops to get the facility ready in at
least six locations where the works are in advanced stages. However, it
is not clear whether the Chief Minister will inaugurate the restaurants
though there are expectations that she might open the one coming up in
Srirangam.
The restaurant in Srirangam will be
located at the overhead drinking water tank complex near the
Rajagopuram. Amma canteens are coming up near Uzhavar Sandhai in Anna
Nagar, Puthur overhead drinking water tank complex, near Gandhi Market,
near Ibrahim Park on West Boulevard Road, and near the Vazhividu
Velmurugan Temple in front of the Railway Junction.
The
corporation will provide the required infrastructure including
buildings, kitchens, cooking and serving utensils and other
paraphernalia. Already about 60 self-help group members, who will be
cooking and running the restaurants, have been trained at the State
Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Technology at Thuvakudi on
the outskirts of the city. The Corporation will bear the salary
expenditure of the staff to be deployed at the restaurants. The State
government was likely to subsidise any gap between the revenue and
expenditure, sources said.
The budget canteens now
function in 200 wards in Chennai. Breakfast is served between 7 a.m. and
noon, and lunch till 3 p.m. The menu of the restaurants has been
expanded recently by the government to offer variety fare including
pongal, tamarind rice, or curry leaf rice and chapathi.
