1.12 Crore meals served at Shramik Annapurna food booths

Annapurna scheme was launched in June 2017 to provide hot and nutritious meals to construction workers at highly subsidized rates.

Gandhinagar, August 5: More than 1.12 crore meals have been served at food booths operated under the Shramik Annapurna Yojana, under which hot and nutritious food is provided at highly subsidized rates to construction workers.

Vipul Mittra, Addl. Chief Secy. Labour and Employment dept. said that the Gujarat Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, which functions under the Labour and Employment department, operates 199 food booths at kadiya nakas (labour points) across the state.

“The food booths were started across the state under the Shramik Annapurna Yojana to provide nutritious meals to construction workers in June 2017.

Since then, more than 1.12 crore meals have been provided at just Rs. 10 per meal. This translates into more than 10,500 meals per day,” said Vipul Mittra, additional chief secretary, Labour and Employment department.

The maximum number of meals were served in Ahmedabad (46.11 lakh), followed by Surat (15.94 lakh), Vadodara (15.81 lakh) and Valsad (10.03 lakh).

Mittra said that the number of meals would have been even higher than 1.12 crore but for the lockdown, which led to the closure of food booths for nearly three months.

“The food booths were closed in March because of the nationwide lockdown. Sixty-one booths were restarted from June 18, and more than 81,000 meals have been served since,” he said.

Post the reopening of the food booths, the highest number of meals has been served in Surat (20,715), followed by Vadodara (18,737), Ahmedabad (18,641) and Bhavnagar (9,715).

“We are planning gradual reopening of the remaining food booths in the coming days,” he added.

In Ahmedabad, at the inaugural event of ‘Shramik Annapurna Yojana’, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani serves Shramik Annapurna food to construction workers.

The cost of the Shramik Annapurna food dish is Rs 10 and it mostly consists of six rotis,pickle, sabji, rice, and green chilli. The actual making cost per dish is around Rs 30.