New Delhi, April 18
A meal of rice and mutton curry for as little as Rs 22 and idli sambar for Rs 1.50! And that too in air-conditioned comfort and hygienic conditions! Also, within walking distance of Connaught Place (CP) or officially Rajiv Gandhi Chowk! Sounds incredible, but it’s true.

In times of inflation, when the aam aadmi is reeling under the steep hike in prices of food items, the good-old canteens (six in number) of Parliament House are dishing out delectable goodies at dirt-cheap rates.

The rates have not been revised here since April 2003. The Northern Railway Catering Service runs the kitchen since 1968 and it earned a revenue of Rs 1.85 crore in the year 2008-09, while the government provided a subsidy of Rs 7.44 crore to offset the losses.

When the Parliament is in session, it is claimed that as many as 7.000 people eat daily at these canteens. Interestingly, only a small number of them are MPs, while the rest comprise secretariat staff, security personnel and mediapersons.

The murmur is growing and a committee of MPs is learnt to have questioned the wisdom of keeping the rates so low. The canteens are also used for exclusive parties, lunches and dinners, and according to available information, as many as 15,000 guests were entertained in such parties in the year 2008-09 alone. For parties, too, rates remain unchanged.

Contrary to popular perception, canteens at state Assemblies and secretariat charge far more. While a plate of idli and sambar costs just Rs 1.50 in Parliament, at the Chennai Assembly canteen, the same plate costs Rs 21. Tea costs Rs 2.50 in Parliament but at Jammu one has to shell out Rs 12 for it.

Rates at the Maharashtra secretariat canteen were hiked in March when price of an idli plate and poha went up from Rs 5 to Rs. 20. A vegetarian thali now costs Rs 60 in the Mumbai canteen, while a non-veg thali is charged at Rs 90 per plate.

At the Guwahati Assembly canteen, a non-vegetarian meal costs between Rs 50 (with fish curry) and Rs 80 (with mutton curry). In sharp contrast, a non-veg meal at Parliament costs Rs 22.

Most of the Assemblies seem to have given the catering contracts to the state tourism development corporation. But in some cases, they have been handed over to private parties also. In Rajasthan, a unit of Rajasthan State Hotels Corporation Ltd runs the show and is reimbursed the losses by the RSHCL.

The business of subsidising food for legislators and officers is not in practice in North-Eastern states though! Most of the canteens in N-E states, except Assam, provide tea and snacks at market rates.

A CPI MLA in Chennai, known for his simplicity and honesty, defended the practice of offering subsidised food and said: “We should fight for lowering the prices of essential goods sold in the open market rather than demand an increase in the rates of subsidised food”. The MLA pointed out that like all communists, he has to surrender the bulk of his salary to the party and, therefore, for people like him subsidised food comes as a boon.

(With inputs from Aditi Tandon, Nelson Ravikumar, Bijaysankar Bora, Perneet Singh, Jupinderjeet Singh and Shiv Kumar)