If all goes well, the Kozhikode corporation will usher in 2009 with a difference. The city’s corporation council is joining hands with the government to banish hunger.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: If all goes well, the Kozhikode corporation will usher in 2009 with a difference. The city’s corporation council is joining hands with the government to banish hunger within the remaining days of 2008.
The ambitious project aims at providing free daily meal at two kitchen counters to any hungry soul residing in the city or visiting it.
The project, christened ‘Hunger-Free City’, is an extension of the Rs2-a-meal scheme announced by the government in the budget. The social welfare department will implement the scheme, powered by funds from the social welfare department, city corporation, MP Parliament Local Area Development Scheme and MLA fund.
Finance minister TM Thomas Isaac and social welfare minister PK Sreemathi are expected to visit the city on December 22 and hold talks with corporates and civic representatives to make the project a success. If the Kozhikode model clicks, the government will replicate it in other cities.
“We plan to rope in voluntary agencies and philanthropists apart from the state government and the civic body. We are looking at ways to procure resources in terms of money or grains. We are sure of making the city hunger-free once the project starts by next month,” mayor M Bhaskaran said.
The plan is to open kitchen counters at two city hospitals. Food will be cooked and served there. The government had already vetted a project where it proposed to give free food to the needy at the Government Medical College on the outskirts of the city. That project now stands suspended before the free-meal scheme.
Apart from the medical college, a private hospital in the city will be identified.
The idea is to provide mid-day meals to around 5,000 people at the medical college alone. The modalities of the project, including financial feasibility, will be worked out at the meeting next week, the mayor said.
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