It’s around 9.45 a.m. on Saturday at Parottukonam in the city. In the kitchen of Shruti catering on Temple Road, lunch boxes, labelled vegetarian and non-vegetarian and stacked separately, await transportation to their destinations. Vijitra R. of Kattayikonam collects the lunch boxes for delivery to a salon at Kuravankonam, furnishing establishment at Ambalamukku, two residences in the Pattom area, and a couple of other places. After delivering these, Vijitra will be back at Parottukonam for picking up the remaining lunches. The deliveries are over by around 12.30 p.m. After 2 p.m., she will make the same rounds, this time to pick up the empty lunch boxes.
Around 150 lunch boxes are delivered by eight women, including Vijitra, on two-wheelers to offices and individuals in five pockets in the city — Medical College, Pattom, LMS, Statue, and Ayurveda College — every day except Sunday as part of Kudumbashree’s Lunch Bell initiative.
The Lunch Bell, the Kudumbashree’s latest venture in the food domain, has been ringing loud in the State capital. Since its launch on March 5, it has delivered over 1,500 lunches from 1,000 orders, with sales of ₹1.3 lakh. A chunk of the orders are from government offices such as the Secretariat, Vikas Bhavan, district panchayat office, and so on.
