India's Indira canteen: The best meal you can buy for 13 cents
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Personally, I think this is an excellent idea. I really liked the story of the lady who said that her morning had been freed because she did not have to cook breakfast anymore. And for many of those using this place, it would similarly free up their time.
Another important point: unlike the gross fast food that you see in the US, this is actually very nutritious. Lentils are a great source of protein and other essential amino acids. The canteens also provide free drinking water. I can see this more as a public health program than a "wasteful subsidy": save millions of man-hours wasted by poor health by providing a decent amount of healthy food to everyone.
As for the idea of indirect assistance via tokens or food stamps: I would wager this is better since the Government can use economies of scale to provide food at low prices. Not to mention: they have quality control over exactly what is offered to the public.
India grows more than enough food to feed all its citizens. I'm glad to see that schemes to provide nutritious meals at subsidized prices to people are finally coming through.
This policy might be a vote-winner, but it's an honourable vote-winner. Quite aside from the obvious humanitarian justification, investments in nutrition have a tremendous RoI. Malnutrition remains one of the key limiting factors on India's economic growth; a bit of China-style central planning might not be a bad idea.
For a US example, school free lunch programs were instituted in 1946 after the US army found that a substantial number of WWII rejected draftees were rejected because of malnutrition problems.
Depends on how it's made. Oil/butter is often added because it's cheap and provides "fullness" without being nutritionally satisfying. With food this cheap, you'll need to take a close look at what's actually going in the food.
There is also a difference in the quality of life. Most of the clientele seem to be daily wage laborers, who could certainly use all the energy they could get.
But you are correct that it can go either way. I'm glad that lentils, at least, are part of the menu. And as someone living in the US, the meals offered seem like luxury compared with the crap fast food meal that seem to be the staple of lower class Americans (please, its not a Nationalist thing. American fast food is objectively bad for health).
This isn't exactly your 80 rupees/dosa Darshini.
Of course the food quality won't be all that great. Thats also with children's mid day meal program in Government schools.
The base rule for things like this is something is better than going hungry.
Of course, but marketing it as "healthy" may not be the most accurate way to portray it.
What you're saying is a classic case of a logical fallacy, specifically, the fallacy of relative privation. Just because there is another bigger problem doesn't mean that this is a legitimate problem.
F^4: Not necessarily. For example, some would argue that an argument is not necessarily "wrong" if it is logically sound and produces a correct conclusion, even though it is fallacious because unbeknownst to the participants there is both a false premise and countervailing unknown factor. See Gettier Problems: http://www.iep.utm.edu/gettier/.
F^5: The notion that the Gettier problem is a problem is itself a fallacy? "On the Gettier Problem problem" http://www.unc.edu/~ujanel/Gettier.htm
If an argument is valid, then we can further consider whether it is sound: are its propositions true when interpreted in some relevant world (often the real one, but possibly any imaginary world that the debaters agree about, e.g. the Star Trek universe or whatever). Being valid, the argument will of course be true, but if it is unsound for the given world, it will only somehow be vacuously true in that world. For instance, by exhibiting a false conclusion from a false premise in a conditional.
Applying this reasoning rigidly to the examples presented in http://www.iep.utm.edu/gettier/ readily unravels their issues. For instance, the lucky coincidence that Smith has ten coins in his pocket readily succumbs to the fact that this situation isn't true in all imaginable universes; it is a separate proposition from "Jones has ten coins in his pocket". It gets a separate variable, and is separately considered both false and true when we go through all the possible variable values.
Most people (not all) wouldn’t consider government distortion of markets as inherently morally bad, but bad because it can cause negative outcomes, i.e. sellers away/out of business, and ultimately leave consumers with worse or more expensive goods. And certainly that’s one possible outcome, depending on the policy and the market in question. But a lot of people leap directly from “government distortion of markets” to “disastrous results”, ignoring that in other cases, the results seem to be either positive or at least not all that bad, as evidenced by a well-functioning market existing despite government intervention. An example of this - with a greater likelihood of applicability due to being in a related market sector - is the agriculture market in the US and EU, with respect to the aforementioned subsidies.
A more subtle point is that these subsidized "canteens" are in urban India, which is already much better off than rural India, where people even now regularly die of hunger[1]. I'm not saying urban poverty isn't a real issue, but the scale of poverty in rural India is much greater.
It's worth noting that you can get free food in many places in India (and in some cities in Europe and the US), via the Sikh langar[2] which is funded by charity and volunteers.
[1] for instance: http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2017/oct/22/man-starv... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langar_(Sikhism)
Also, every week a Sikh group feeds the homeless and disenfranchised on East Hastings in Vancouver.
So yes, I can in fact easily get food from the Sikhs. :) And I have, when I was amongst the disenfranchised. It was very appreciated.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gurdwaras Some of the gurudwaras
Google Maps...really? I don't mean offense for being obtuse, but I sense a bit of first-world bias in your assessment.
I would imagine that for someone who is so poor that finding a simple meal is a daily struggle, what I might perceive as an inconvenience is almost certainly a show-stopping barrier.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Food_Security_Act,_20...
Most people I know who are eating here are service professionals. Drivers, janitors, poor students etc. And most have a positive feedback. Being able to afford food, which is hot and fills stomach, served almost wherever they work. They can eat quickly and get back to work.
There is a lot of value that these canteens provide over haphazard temple based food charity.
Incidentedly, Indira Gandhi (After whom the Indira canteen is named) was assassinated by Sikhs. Does the naming of the canteen have anything to do with the assassination ?
The assasination of Indira Gandhi was related a separatist movement who wanted Punjab to secede from the rest of India (while Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister)
Sikhs from the Punjab province of India have a free community kitchen for anyone from any background to break bread together, each day.
It is a vegetarian meal designed to express and practice equality among all of humanity and was in part meant to abolish the caste system.
Anyone can go into any Sikh place and have a free meal anywhere in the world. I don't have the link handy but it works out to a few million meals a day around a the world for free, paid for solely by donations.
https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
More seriously, is there a way to look before 1960? I want to look from 1930 or so, I think India's population really exploded post-Independence.
Before 1900, the child mortality rate in India was over 50%. If you need children to care for you in old age and expect most of your children to die, you're likely to have a lot of them. When child survival improved, attitudes changed. Parents no longer want three or four children to work on the family farm, they want one or two children to become doctors or engineers. Economic development and the availability of reliable contraception have made that aspiration practical.
If you're interested in the topic, I can highly recommend this lecture by the late Hans Rosling:
Thanks for the other information in your comment!
For people who are in the "patriotic" group. Your country needs to maintain the infrastructure to self-sustain it's people in a world war.
What would be a more effective strategy over food subsidies?
Edit: Sorry I meant Farm subsidies, not food stamps.
The reality is, the majority of these subsidies go to multi-million dollar farms, not the small family farms. As a result, we're effectively paying taxes to raise prices on food, which is very regressive in that it hurts the poor far more than the wealthy.
Of course, the flip side of the coin is that without the subsidies, prices would be so low that small farms wouldn't be able to compete anyway. Supply would, assuming the weather cooperates, roughly match demand, and a not insignificant chunk of taxes could go towards other programs (such as subsidizing school breakfasts and lunches). Then, we'd have some bizarre mix of natural disasters that creates a severe shortage of several key crops, causing significant chaos both in markets and in the daily lives of people who like to eat food, and we'd end up right back where we started- demanding the government guarantee that we don't run out of food in lean times, and paying the price for doing so.
Food wise, logistics wise or technology wise? Because while the US could manage the first two assuming no major internal disruptions, we've pretty much abandoned the third in favor of cheap imports and profits.
From a consumer perspective, sure. From a critical defense perspective, not entirely[1].
[1] https://www.dmea.osd.mil/otherdocs/AccreditedSuppliers.pdf
In terms of critical defense: L-3, Honeywell, Rockwell Collins, and Elbit (Israel) are a few major players off the top of my head that cater to domestic weapon system displays.
In terms of consumer displays: Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are allies. Humoring a doomsday isolation scenario with consideration towards America's disposable first-world couch potato culture, there's probably enough TVs/monitors in existing circulation throughout the country to sustain even the most improbably protracted conflict, let alone used surplus being auctioned off by the pallet for pennies on the dollar. Might even resuscitate a dead repair trade and create a few meaningful jobs too. Of course, this all assumes the government doesn't acknowledge a supply deficiency and fails to seed the capability need.
Don't get me wrong. I agree that the status quo of domestic technology production isn't exactly a self-lubricating wheel and leaves much to be desired...but it's not exactly dead in the water either.
If you consistently deliver brilliant policies that help your people, you should be re-elected.
Plus, by still making the people pay, you can offer them an amazing tool to increase their productivity WITHOUT taking away their pride in providing for themselves or establishing a direct indefinite dependency.
Incentive alignment should be expected with the majority of society - or at least the voting public.
The government taking your money and giving it to other people for votes isn't capitalism, it's corruption.
You must be against state sponsored healthcare too ?. Isn't that just taking taxes from healthy people and using it to treat ill people. In your words - corruption.
One of the many goals of a certain type of Government is wealth redistribution.
Simple food (Polish food obviously, not Indian), government-subsidized, targeted at students, the elderly, the poor, but not means-tested or anything so technically anyone can get a plate, including foreigners, for very cheap. Typically very good food, but horrible customer service (old women yelling at you to make up your mind while you order, etc).
Things like that can easily become the identity of the place.
I'll use an American analogy to illustrate, and so I'm sorry in advance if it doesn't translate well.
In the Washington D.C. area (where I have several friends working), the restaurants are overwhelmingly high-end. A meal at a standard Panera bread is one of the more affordable options, and costs you somewhere between $12-15. Assuming said person works minimum wage, they're making $12.50/hr. In the longterm, that's really not sustainable, as they're spending an hour of their work-time just to be able to eat during the workday.
Suppose a Subway opens next door, and, additionally, suppose their $5 footlong still existed (it doesn't, but stay with me). The people who previously went to Panera start going to Subway because it's more affordable. Yeah, the Panera suffers, but many of the people that ate there couldn't really afford to eat there in the first place, and would have eventually stopped when their dwindling finances made it impossible.
Now on the other hand, if Subway was our base price and a government-subsidized eatery opens up with complete meals for $2, then yes, I can see how that might be a problem.
Our cities are becoming wholly inhospitable to poor people, and food is no exception. And, someone making $12.50/hour probably can't really afford rent in a city like DC, either.
Is there typically electricity in these situations? I ask because per my post below, I wonder how common it is to bootstrap up to a mini-fridge + pressure cooker or rice cooker or something like that. Seems like a few weeks of PB&J + cup ramen could provide for a significant upgrade in nutrition from purchasing those tools.
I'm probably leaving out some important aspect of this, and unfortunately some of this might simply be around education of where to purchase these tools and what to do with them to eat smarter, but I can't help but think there are ways to improve the situation with the cards they currently have in their hand.
If I found myself suddenly living out of a car or storage unit (provided it had electricity), I'd probably do whatever I could to save for a mini-fridge and rice cooker (eventually upgrading to a pressure cooker), and go from there. Rice and beans purchased in bulk are affordable and solid staples, and easy to turn into more nutritious meals by adding other ingredients.
There was a guy living in the storage unit next to the one I have in Austin (for my stuff from when I moved out of a house and back into an RV). The folks who ran the storage facility let him run an extension cord to the nearest power; several people actually were living in that facility, despite it being illegal. So, in his case he did have electricity, and I believe he had a mini-fridge. We talked several times and he seemed to have a pretty reasonable setup. He even had a space heater for when it got cold. I never saw the inside of his house (he'd built a wall and second regular door behind the rolling garage style door), but he seemed to be reasonably comfortable and had regular work really close by (since he only had a bike, proximity was important). The last time I was there, he'd moved out, and the person working didn't know where he'd gone; I'm hoping he was doing well and got an apartment rather than ran into harder times.
Similarly, I've seen people use one of these to get electricity inside a storage unit when they didn't have particularly understanding landlords: http://i.walmartimages.com/i/p/00/04/31/80/63/0004318063152_...
But, people in cars or vans probably don't have power. Some RVers have solar panels, and also RV fridges often also run on propane (though they aren't terribly efficient in the old RVs...I go through about $15/week running mine on propane). Propane fridges are very expensive and very fidgety and prone to breakage over time, however, so it's not uncommon to see the propane/electric dual-mode fridge replaced with an electric-only model in the cheapest old RVs. So, that limits the use of the fridge to times when it's plugged in.
I know someone who lives in a bus that she converted to an RV herself, but she didn't put in a fridge (yet), so while she has a stove, if she's not parked near a grocery, she is very limited in what she can cook. Some things keep well without refrigeration: onions, potatoes, winter squash, etc. She has potted plants for tomatoes and herbs, but she's much more intentional about her situation. She moved out of an apartment and into the bus by choice, not by necessity, and mostly enjoys the off-the-grid lifestyle. She made one of these for when she's in the desert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-pot_refrigerator but those only work in very dry climates and aren't cold enough for many foods. Obviously wouldn't work in most places...and if you're in a city, you have to be self-contained and very discreet about where you're living. Can't really spread out and put out pots and stuff when parked on a street.
American Commute
Distance (One Way) Percent
1-5 Miles 29 %
6-10 Miles 22 %
11-15 Miles 17 %
16-20 Miles 10 %
21+ Miles 23 %
(source: US Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Omnibus Household Survey. )Your other option is to live in someone's guest room or basement for $600. The people who rent out these rooms usually expect to be renting to college students, and so there is often very little by way of accommodations: the room may be 10x10" and include little more than a bed and a desk. The family will also make it very clear that the tenant is not allowed to use the kitchen, making cooking impossible. So the tenant is pushed to live meal-to-meal, as it were, with little expectation of being able to store or prepare food long-term.
So while I recognize that not everyone in that situation may be resourceful enough to realize this and do something about it, the notion that cooking becomes impossible is not accurate.
The education for where to purchase these things cheaply and how to cook in restricted situations with them is admittedly still a problem though, and it seems like a lot of good could be done to solve it. Getting your nutrition bootstrapped up on a path that lets you save more money seems like a worthwhile goal.
For me since I always carry from home for lunch and eat dinner at home, so cooking needs to be in all categories like low/medium/elaborate efforts. And of course tasty enough that myself or anyone joining me reasonably like it.
So I'm in my 10x10 room (no kitchen access because my landlords are a conservative family that just wants spare-room money, remember), I've managed to fit a mini-fridge in some corner next to my desk, and a rice cooker that sits on top of it. Let's make rice! Firstly, where am I storing the uncooked rice? Do I buy a 5-lb bag of rice for $10 that could feed me for a month? Probably not, because I don't have the storage space. So I spend a dollar and buy the smallest bag I can find, which makes just over 2 cups of rice. In the long term it's way more expensive, but it saves space, because I'll just cook all 2 cups now and have nothing you need to worry about storing.
Rice is not terribly filling or healthy on its own. Maybe we'll jazz it up and throw a tomato into the middle of the rice cooker to make tomato rice. This kinda-sorta borders on a meal. So our rice is done. How do I eat this? I guess I'll buy a single bowl and some chopsticks. Or, screw that, I'll buy a single bowl and snatch some extra plastic cutlery from the Popeye's across the street.
I've finished eating. Even as a meager meal (not super filling, and I've got nothing other than plastic salt-and-pepper shakers that I bought from Wal-Mart as seasoning), I can't eat more than a cup or so of rice. So I've got leftovers. What am I storing these leftovers in? I don't have room to buy some pyrex containers. Maybe I can just cover the inner bowl of the rice cooker with some plastic wrap! Balls, now I need plastic wrap...
Day 2, I should eat some of my tomato rice leftovers. How am I going to reheat this? I could probably reheat it with boiling water, but I'd need to buy an electric kettle or, at the very least, a hot-shot. Maybe if I buy a drink at the nearby 7-11, they'll let me use their microwave? Man, that's a nuisance. I might as well just get some wings at 7-11 if I'm going over there anyway...
Some people just aren't responsible with money, they don't budget, they don't live within their means, they don't really think or care to look at the expenses or how they add up.
If you did a Venn diagram of low wage earners and people who aren't really responsible with their money, those are the people eating at Panera Bread, or buying things from Rent-A-Center or taking out high interest loans and engaging in every sort of behavior that compounds the problems with making low wages.
Same in the U.S. about McDonald's, fast food, and other junk food sellers whose product is based on corn, soy, beef, and other recipients of billions of dollars of subsidy and unaccounted externalities.
Back then, I was surprised how much even seemingly low income people were dishing out on food.
When line 9 was just opened, there was no underground connection in between it and line 4 in Shangmeilin. Food cart owners who set up shops on the sandlot in between stations, were allegedly having turnovers closing on 5k usd per day in first months after opening given how many commuters going to and from factories were passing by that place.
Food there was rather basic, but quite expensive. 30CNY for a big bowl of beef noodle soup, more than double than what you expected for street food back then, yet I have not seen a single time when there was no lineup.
Even in a country as poor as India, food is not a double percentage of income spending even for a moderately well off person.
It is better to have underemployed, and socially marginalized people fed well and healthy, than to deal with consequences of them not having access to proper nutrition.
Probably less than you might imagine, for more than one reason.
First, it adds another attractor to the area, and while some people will only get the cheapest food others will at least occasionally have a desire for and money for something different or fancier. Those decisions may very well not be made until the person or group is already in that area. This is why many restaurants are often found in clusters.
Second, for some of the nicer options this may mean a shift from people getting everything as cheap as possible (but still more than the cost now) to people being able to save money on 1-2 meals a day and getting something nicer for another at one of those commercial entities.
Finally, while some places that would be most directly in competition might fail other businesses will surely move in to capture the business of the crowds of people who now have a little more money available to spend.
The difference between these projects and soup kitchens is these are chiefly political projects. The state borrows to pay for patronage and largesse. No doubt, the vendors were not selected through an open auction.
This again is named after an Indian Prime Minister whose name is synonymous with a particular party in India.
I have had my well-off friends in India where 4 person family dinner will cost more than monthly salary of their car driver. And it is simultaneously true that driver's salary is quite less and a decent restaurant meal is very expensive.
Your friends are eating at a place that costs 2500 INR per head? That's not a decent restaurant meal, that's a lavish restaurant.
I would say 200 INR gets you a decent restaurant meal.
I usually take Uber in India, and often ask the driver about his work, how much he makes, etc. This is for a North-Indian Tier-2 city.
The answer usually is that he makes INR 6000/month.
Now, I have eaten in middling restaurants where a meal for 2 came to INR 2500. In fact, I've been to cafes where a "meal" of tea, snacks, etc. alone came to over INR 700/pp. You would be hard pressed to get a decent meal in a clean, hygenic and modern restaurant for INR 200 anywhere in North India.
I've been to restaurants where the expense (including drinks) was 5k per head. One of the companies during placements took new hires out for dinner, the bill was 12k per head. I've been to places in USA where the bill was 200$ per head. This isn't a "decent meal".
> You would be hard pressed to get a decent meal in a clean, hygenic and modern restaurant for INR 200 anywhere in North India.
I can suggest dozens of places in Chandigarh and Delhi. Even McDonalds, Dominoes would cost less than 200 per head. And those are considered a decent place in India.
There is a wild rush to get your cab listed or attached to some BigCo transport, because you get paid better, plus guaranteed business. Also note most people driving for Uber/Ola are cabs from black money sources. Most government employees now buy cabs and auto rickshaws and do this business, as avenues for spending black money are drying out. So at the end cab driver makes less money.
Most Uber/Ola business in Bangalore is around IT parks, Malls etc. Where there is a lot of traffic during peak hours, and you can't do more than one trip in the morning.
I don't know why they'd be conning me, and so many of them too, unless there's a "driver mafia" out to fool the public about .... what their driver makes?? Doesn't pass Occam's test.
Most of them are that way. Most cops are into this business, its getting impossible to invest black cash in a meaningful way. There are now capital controls in every investment. Want to buy gold, land, mutual funds, whatever? Get ready to submit you PAN and Aadhar. So they can't spend money that way. At very same time, they can't sit on cash, because inflation.
They generally buy the vehicle in a relative's name, with black cash(Huge second hand market for this). And do this cab business. Most drivers are poor ex-farm workers. So they take whatever they get.
The last time I heard from a auto rickshaw driver, more or less every cop in Bangalore has something like this going.
I recommend asking the drivers yourselves.
200 INR too is expensive. Even with a programmer's salary I wouldn't spend that money on one single meal.
Most people who have a need to spend that much are better off carrying their lunch. It would cost you 1/8th of that, plus home cooked food means healthy food in general.
I think any place that charges 200 would give you a decent meal. Can't say the same for 100 though.
But this was over exaggeration.
Raj Babbar definitely went too far, but 30-40 INR is enough to find a meal (Even the article corroborates these numbers). Don't expect fine dining and mineral water though.
Not if the food is being bought from cronies with borrowed money. Indian agriculture is notoriously inefficient [1].
Better institutions would upgrade the farms, thereby reducing the price of food, and use some of the surplus wealth to educate, and upgrade the lifestyles of, the masses. TL; DR Approximate the Industrial Revolution, with the benefits of hindsight. This won't happen, however, because 100 poor farmers dependent on your political handouts are more valuable than those same farmers a little bit wealthier, and a little bit smarter.
That said, we're talking about the world's largest democracy. All in all, the system is performing well enough.
[1] http://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/Agriculture_product...
While is is fashionable to talk about govt. corruption, I do recall that vendors were selected via auction. While there may be internal kick-backs and what-have-yous, on the face of it, this was done correctly.
http://bbmp.gov.in/documents/10180/5784621/Tender+Doc-Indira...
Since it is run by congress party (govt) they can use the best real estate in town, which provides the highest visibility to the commuters.
[0]: https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/legendary-singer-...
Each temple have their own tradition and they have the right to their own tradition. Now, allowing a non-devotee into the temple is their business. But that doesn't mean, one cannot find any temple anywhere.
Hence the need for the government to step in and help out the hungry, instead of leaving it to temples, etc.
(Like I said, I don't necessarily disagree with who the temples choose to let in.)
These are scraps to hide the big loot at the top.
So this is kind of giving us a preview of what meals will cost when food production and meal prep are automated.
I was happy that the tradition of naming everything after Rajiv Gandhi is stopping.
I am from the state Tamilnadu where this model first got introduced - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36659670
IMO, because the other side cannot just stand up and say "well done, that is a good move". It's the new normal.
"In fact, Guatemala has the highest rate of malnutrition in the Western Hemisphere: 50 percent of the population is stunted and, in rural Mayan villages, that figure gets as high as 80 percent." * We compared a group of native 9-year-old Mayans and a group of 9-year-old Mayans raised in the United States. The difference was dramatic. The American Mayan children who have access to better food are, on average, six inches taller than those raised in Guatemala.* http://abcnews.go.com/Health/malnutrition-severe-stunting-gu...
If the govt reduces taxes for people in low income range is that vote bank politics?
If government provides free education to the poor is that vote bank politics?
Both the above items are aimed at a certain segment.
If you think the answer to above questions is Yes, then in that case every body has vote bank politics, and discussing whether it’s vote bank politics is of little use (I am not even sure if it is a bad thing).
I think a better question to ask is whether it is good policy. I don’t see any argument indicating it is bad policy. Seems like it is helping a certain section of the society at little cost to the rest.
1. What are the per meal costs, aka how much of the meal does the 13c cover?
2. Is there some benefit/downside to just "free" food instead of the minimal cost?