Times News Network

Bangalore, May 22: Perhaps for the first time in the country, lunch and dinner for prisoners is being outsourced. Inmates of Bangalore Central Jail will receive food cooked outside.

Prisoners, used to a daily diet of poor-quality rice, insipid sambar and watery buttermilk, were on Monday May 21, treated to a sumptuous meal of rice pongal, khara bhundi, panaka, in addition to good rice, thick sambhar and buttermilk prepared by Iskcon's kitchen on Kanakapura Road. "Outsourcing of meals for prisoners is being done for the first time in India," claimed ADGP prisons S T Ramesh.

Henceforth, Iskcon will ferry the meals here in time for the 11.30 am lunch and 6.30 pm dinner, using specially equipped vehicles costing Rs 11 lakh a piece. Home minister M P Prakash said, "I had mooted this idea of having food cooked by an organisation like Iskcon.

Prison authorities took it up earnestly and it is now a reality." Convicts will receive good quality food — 710 gm of rice, 500 ml of sambhar and 200 ml of buttermilk for their lunch and dinner — while undertrails will receive 505 gm of rice and large portions of sambhar and buttermilk. The sambhar has a large quantity of fresh vegetables.

The prisoners, who got upma for breakfast for years, have been receiving a changed menu for the past two months — upma, vangi bhath, chitranna, puliogare, vangi bhath and avalakki. Iskcon's Madhu Pandit Das said the effort to feed prisoners was possible because of the new kitchen where it was possible to cook 1 lakh meals per day.