The State Cabinet on Tuesday cleared the proposal to set up a centre at every district headquarters to provide citizens meals at ₹10, as promised in the common minimum programme of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).
The Shiv Bhojan scheme will run on an experimental basis for three months, and each centre will have the daily capacity to provide 500 meals. The government will subsidise each meal by ₹25 in rural areas and ₹40 in urban areas. Which means the actual cost of the full meal will be ₹35 and ₹50 respectively. The grant for the scheme for three months is expected to cost the treasury ₹6.48 crore.
Each meal will contain two chapatis and one portion of sabzi, rice and dal. The Shiv Bhojan will be available from noon to 2 p.m. every day at these centres.
The government has also drawn up norms on the eligibility of entrepreneurs who want to set up the canteens under the scheme. Those who are at present running their own canteens, women self-help groups, NGOs and hoteliers are eligible to set up the canteens.
As per the proposal, areas such as district hospitals, bus stands, railway stations, markets and government offices are preferred choices to set up these canteens, as these are places which attract people from lower income groups in large numbers.
A committee will be formed under the Collector at the district level and under the tehsildar at the tehsil level to choose the individuals to set up the canteens.
The scheme will be monitored at the State level by a committee under the Chief Secretary, which will take decisions on the central kitchen, inclusion of renowned NGOs, and funds from public trusts and corporate social responsibility. It will also focus on measures such as cross-subsidy and public-private partnership to ensure that the scheme runs for long.
The proposal, a pre-poll promise of the Sena, was subsequently included in the MVA’s common minimum programme.
