SC Issues Notice for Establishing Community Kitchens

Community kitchens are also termed institutions responsible for providing free or inexpensive nutritious food. The purpose of community kitchen is to provide a service to the public. These kinds of kitchens can be Initiated or handled by the state or religious institutions. These community kitchens are also seen as a complement to all the existing schemes implemented by the government of India to combat malnutrition and hunger in the country. Recently, the Supreme Court issued a notice to establish community kitchens. They have also implemented a community kitchen scheme. 

More about the issue noticed by SC

The Supreme Court has clearly expressed that they have a strong resentment over the response given by the Centre related to framing the policy of a pan India to implement the scheme of the community kitchen and to initiate the purpose of community kitchen. It has also granted three weeks to conduct a meeting with all the states. It also states that the first responsibility of any welfare state is to make sure that people who are dying due to hunger are provided with enough food. The Supreme Court has also agreed to examine a petition related to the continuation of starvation deaths to eat the right to dignity and life.  As per the petition, the community kitchens funded by the state were not considered a novel concept. It has also urged to formulate a scheme before the national legal services authority. This urge to formulate a scheme was to extend the article 51A provisions of the Constitution so that the deaths caused due to starvation, hunger, and malnutrition are mitigated. It also stated the fact about the community kitchens established in India and how they were combating the hunger, starvation, and malnutrition crisis in their states. A bench included NV Ramana, the chief justice, and Hima Kohli and A S Bopanna Justice. They heard the seeking directions of PIL to formulate the community kitchen scheme to combat malnutrition and hunger in the country.

Current situation 

In India, around 199.4 million people are undernourished as per the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the world report of 2019. As per the numbers, it can be stated that around 5% of the Indian population is undernourished. In 2018, the Food and agriculture report stated that out of eight 21 million undernourished people globally, India alone had won 95.9 million undernourished people. This accounts for around 24% of the world’s hunger reports. In addition to it, the prevalence of undernourishment in India is 8%, which is considered the highest compared to the average of Asia and the globe.

Moreover, as per the national health survey NHS of 2017, around 19,00,00,000 people in India slept on an empty stomach each night. Also, there are around 4500 children who were dying before five years in the country, and this was only due to malnutrition and hunger. This alone accounted for more than three lakh deaths of children each year.

Benefits of a Community Kitchen

There are certain benefits of a community kitchen that a country can have and these benefits are based on the purpose of community kitchen. These are as follows:

• Employment generation
• A measure toward food security
• Decrease undernourished population
• Decrease the number of deaths caused by hunger and starvation
• It also reduces corruption

Examples of Community Kitchen

The purpose of community kitchens remains the same throughout the country. Some examples of the community kitchen in India or as follows:

• Karnataka’s Indira canteens
• Annapurna Rasoi of Rajasthan
• Andhra Pradesh’s Anna Canteen
• AamAadmi Canteen of Delhi
• Mukhyamantri Dal Bhat of Jharkhand
• Ahaar Centre of Odisha
• AmmaUnavagam of Tamil Nadu.

Conclusion

Community kitchens in India have proved beneficial in providing a community that is not undernourished, as it is the purpose of community kitchen. It has helped many communities to overcome malnutrition. As we can see, India’s current situation related to malnutrition and hunger is not so great, so in addition to government initiatives, community kitchens also play an important role. The notice issued by the Supreme Court to establish community kitchens in India will prove to be beneficial. This new measure to develop community kitchens worldwide has a major objective of feeding the country’s hungry and poor people.