Spotlight: How Indira Canteens lost flavour among patrons in Bengaluru

It is breakfast time, around 7.30 a.m. Gangamma and Nagalakshmi, who work as pourakarmikas (civic workers), are among the many waiting outside the Indira Canteen located next to the Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Majestic metro station in Bengaluru.

The canteen is open, but the food has not yet arrived yet. Between this Indira Canteen and Majestic bus stand on the other side, lies a heap of garbage — plastic covers, leftover food, damp waste. Partially cleared, but not enough to ignore.  

A man collects a meal at the Indira Canteen near Tannery Road, in Bengaluru on February 10, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
ALLEN EGENUSE J

When breakfast finally arrives, bisi bele baht and pongal, it is served quickly. Filling meals that workers, like Nagalakshmi, say give them enough energy to last until their shifts end at 11 a.m.

Nagalakshmi, a sanitation worker who eats at the canteen along her daily work route, ate in quick mouthfuls, checking the time on her phone between bites. She had about eight minutes, she said, before moving on to cleaning Gandhinagar, and then rushing to catch a bus to her home at DJ Halli.

Every day, she relies on this canteens to fit a meal into her work schedule and budget. Designed as a universal scheme rather than a targeted welfare scheme, the canteens offer breakfast at ₹5, and lunch and dinner at ₹10.

While workers like Nagalakshmi do rely on these canteens daily, many are not convinced of their reliability. 

An auto driver, when asked if he ever ate at these canteens, shook his head, saying “Why take the risk?” He had never even tried the food, he said, because he had ‘heard’ too many stories about poor quality rice, finding worms in pulses, and about kitchens being unhygienic.   

This perception is a far cry from the reputation enjoyed by Indira Canteens in the early days.

Promise of universal access 

Indira Canteens were introduced by the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka in August 2017 as an urban food security measure, to provide affordable, cooked meals to anyone, specifically targeting people who spend most of their day outside their homes — daily-wage workers, sanitation staff, construction workers, students, the elderly, and commuters navigating long work hours and rising food costs.

The canteens promised hot, filling and nutritious meals served at fixed timings and in easily accessible public locations, such as bus stands, hospitals and markets.

During the launch at Jayanagar, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had breakfast at the Indira Canteen, and stated that even the ‘poorest and weakest’ in the country must not go hungry. In 2024, in his second tenure as Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah inaugurated the Indira Canteen at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru and tried the food with his Cabinet colleagues.

An urban need

The canteens addressed a real urban need — highly subsidised meals for people whose workdays are long and physically demanding. That need has only grown, but, over the years, a combination of delayed payments, staffing shortage, unreliable operations, and gaps between announcements and implementation, have weakened the scheme’s ability to function consistently. 

During our visit to 12 Indira Canteens across Bengaluru, we observed people of very different occupations, age groups and income levels accessing these canteens regularly because the prices and availability accommodate even the most financially constrained.

With an average of at least 400 persons visiting each Indira Canteen daily, as per data from Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), maintaining consistency in hygiene, nutrition and food preparation cannot be an option.

Over the past three months, West City Corporation has received around 30 complaints related to quality of the food and hygiene, while the other four corporations — South, North, East and Central — reported an average of three to five complaints per month.

Nutrition gap

One of the persistent criticisms of Indira Canteens has been the limited nutritional value of the food served. While the meals are affordable and filling, they are cereal-heavy, with rice forming the bulk of the menu, and very little in the way of protein or dietary diversity. This raises questions about whether the canteens are merely addressing hunger in the short term rather than contributing to basic nutritional security, especially of those who depend on these meals regularly. 

You can see the dominance of rice across meals — bisi bele baht and pulav for breakfast; rice with sambar and curd rice for lunch; and flavoured rice, generally chitranna (lemon rice), and rice with rasam for dinner. On some days, khara baht is offered as one of the two breakfast options, or ragi mudde (millet ball) is added at lunch alongside rice, but the overall composition continues to be heavily skewed towards carbohydrates. 

In Tamil Nadu, Amma Canteens follow a menu that routinely includes lentils, fermented foods and dairy along with cereals. Even in Rajasthan, Annapurna Rasoi, which offers a meal for ₹8, serves a fixed menu that includes rotis or rice, dal and cooked vegetables, with pulses and vegetables being a part of every meal.  

This, public health experts like Dr. Sylvia Karpagam argue, contrasts with Karnataka’s approach in its mid-day meal programme. Over the years, the State has introduced eggs to address protein deficiency among schoolchildren, recognising that cereal-based meals alone are nutritionally inadequate. Eggs are now part of the menu in many government schools, with alternatives such as bananas or chikkis offered where eggs are not consumed. 

That recognition, however, has not extended to Indira Canteens. Despite serving adults, senior citizens and daily-wage workers who often depend on these meals as their only assured food of the day, there has been no move to introduce basic nutritional add-ons, such as buttermilk, ragi malt or eggs, even as optional top-ups, she pointed out.

At the time of its launch in 2017, Indira Canteens had a menu that included khara baht, pongal, puliyogare, chitranna and bisi bele baht for breakfast, while lunch and dinner centred on rice with sambar and curd rice. The structure of the menu remains largely unchanged. The meals continue to be predominantly rice-based across breakfast, lunch and dinner.

In 2023, after Siddaramaiah-led government came back to power, items such as bread and jam, and Mangaluru buns were proposed to be added to the breakfast menu, but the proposal was not implemented. The notable addition, in practice, has been the inclusion of ragi mudde at lunch.

Not just about a meal

While mixing rice with sambar on his plate, Selvaraj P., 72, complained that the food is often served cold, and that the sambar usually has no vegetables. He has been eating at the Indira Canteen at Rajajinagar ever since he lost his wife in September 2018. His first visit, he recalled, was on a Sunday in the same year, the only day in the week the canteen serves kesari baht along with khara baht for breakfast. 

An elderly man having a meal at the Indira Canteen in Benson Town, in Bengaluru on February 10, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
ALLEN EGENUSE J

Over the years, the canteen became part of his daily routine. “The food is cheap, and I made a few friends during my visits to the canteen,” he said, referring to a group of elderly men he eats with most mornings. But the quality, he added, has declined. “The food is not consistent in quality or taste. One day the sambar is thick, the next day, it is watery,” he said. 

Selvaraj further gestured towards the open space where people stood eating, and added that even a bench or two would make a difference for people of his age. 

Access, proximity to workplace or dwelling, affordability and the social ease of eating alongside others are all factors that make Indira Canteens important for the likes of Selvaraj.

Safe places for working women

Beyond nutrition and pricing, spaces like Indira Canteens have also come to occupy a major role in the public life, particularly for working women in labour-intensive and informal jobs. 

Mumtaz Mehrum, a garment factory worker, points to the row of small food stalls she passes on her 1.3-kilometre walk from the Indira Canteen at Mahadevapura to her workplace. “After 8.30 p.m., the places we can afford are usually packed with men,” she said, adding that a place like Indira Canteen gives shelter and a safe space to eat at minimal cost. 

A child having a meal at the Indira Canteen near Tannery Road, in Bengaluru on February 10, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
ALLEN EGENUSE J

At the same time, Indira Canteens provide relief for women who carry a disproportionate burden when it comes to feeding their families.

For women like Nagalakshmi, whose day begins at 5 a.m. and is split between paid labour and household responsibilities, breakfast at the Indira Canteen eases a significant portion of her daily load, she said.

Footfall is highest in the morning

In fact, breakfast sees the highest footfall in these canteens.

At the Indira Canteen near Kempegowda International Airport (KIA), breakfast is served to around 1,600 people every day, with cab and bus drivers forming a large part of the patrons. Across other wards and kitchens in Bengaluru, the average breakfast turnout ranges between 280 and 300 people per day, while dinner sees a smaller crowd of 75 to 90, according to GBA figures.

Repetitive menu, repetitive problems

A man who works at one of the Indira Canteens gestures as he pours sambar, highlighting that the broth is thin. “Besides, the food is repetitive. Even we are tired of serving the same thing every day. People sometimes ask if there will be something different, or what kind of rice is being served that day, but even we don’t know until the food arrives from the central kitchen,” he added. 

He believes breakfast could be improved, noting that the canteen sees its highest footfall between 7.30 a.m. and 10 a.m. “If lunch and dinner are repetitive, at least breakfast should have variety. Our customers specifically ask for dosa, idli and pongal. The menu should be decided after consulting the beneficiaries,” he said. 

A server at the canteen near Majestic said, “This is not a restaurant, it’s a government kitchen. What can you expect? People eat here only because they have no other option. The government knows this.” 

Starved of funds

The core problem behind many of the concerns raised about Indira Canteens lies in the budget. In its early years, the programme received substantial State funding — ₹100 crore in 2017‑18, which increased to around ₹145 crore the following year to support rapid expansion across Bengaluru and other urban centres. At the launch, the then Food Minister U.T. Khader had promised that Indira Canteens would serve better food than Tamil Nadu’s Amma Canteens with no compromise on quality.

After 2019, the BJP government was accused of ‘starving’ the programme of funds, leaving the erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to scrape by with meagre resources. By the 2022‑23 budget, just ₹60 crore was earmarked for Indira Canteens, a fraction of the original allocation. 

When Siddaramaiah returned to power in 2023, there was hope that the programme he had once championed would finally see the revival it deserved. While he spoke of revival, kitchens remain underfunded and under-maintained. 

The Indira Canteen at K. R. Market in Bengaluru on February 10, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
SUDHAKARA JAIN

When Indira Canteens were launched in 2017, the plan was to establish one outlet in each of Bengaluru’s 198 wards, combining with mobile units in areas where space was not readily available. In the first phase, 18 mobile ‘canteens on wheels’ were introduced to serve meals near bus stands, hospitals and other high-footfall public spaces. At its peak, the network grew to include around 174 permanent canteens and over 20 mobile units across Bengaluru.

However, not all of them functioned consistently over the years, with several units becoming irregular due to funding and operational constraints. At present, more than 190 Indira Canteens are operational in Karnataka. In 2024, the Chief Minister had announced addition of 50 more canteens in Bengaluru at an estimated cost of ₹220 crore, with the cost being shared between the State and the erstwhile BBMP.

Glimmer of hope for revival

The possibility of a potential revival of Indira Canteens through renewed corporation funding is one option. Under the newly-formed GBA, five city corporations will, for the first time, prepare separate budgets. Corporation Commissioners have acknowledged that many canteens need more than infrastructural upgrades. They also need improvements to their menu to better serve users. There is some hope that the upcoming State Budget would focus on this flagship scheme.