Madhya Pradesh CM Chouhan rolls out mobile kitchen centres for poor in civic bodies
BHOPAL: Expanding the Deendayal Rasoi Yojna (DRY), Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan Saturday inaugurated 25 mobile kitchen centres in the state to provide meals to the poor at their place at Rs 5 only.
Flagging off the mobile kitchen vans from the Smart City Park at a function in Bhopal, CM Chouhan said that poor people who come to the cities for work or some other reasons generally have food at hotels and their hard-earned money used to be spent only on getting meals, so it came to his mind to start DRY under which a full meal is provided at Rs 5.
“Sometimes, people work in some places and cover long distances to have food. Time and money will be spent just commuting to the kitchen. Therefore, the idea of a mobile kitchen centre came to my mind to take the kitchen to the places where poor people are working”, CM Chouhan said.
CM Chouhan also said that the mobile kitchens will keep moving where poor people and labourers work and also near hospitals where people from different regions come. These mobile kitchen vans would go near the work sites to provide meals to the labourers at Rs 5, he said.
“Deendayal Upadhyay used to say that serving the poor is worship of God. This is the mantra for me. Therefore, we are starting mobile kitchen centres to serve the poor”, the CM further said.
At the function, CM Chouhan launched 25 mobile kitchen centres in the state including four in Indore, three in Bhopal and two each in Gwalior and Jabalpur Municipal Corporations. Similarly, each mobile kitchen has been started in Mandideep and Pithampur industrial townships and 12 in other Urban Local Bodies.
More than 2 crore 25 lakh people have so far benefited from the DRY started in the state on 7 February 2017 with operation at 56 places. At present, 166 permanent kitchen centres are being operated in the civic bodies.
CM Chouhan hailed the efforts made by the State Urban Administration and Development Department (UADD) to run this scheme. At the outset of the event, Commissioner UADD Bharat Yadav threw light on the DRY. On this occasion, the city’s Mayor Malti Rai and Commissioner of Public Relations Manish Singh were present.
