Puttur: Government, over the years has made sure that school students are served with hot meals in the afternoon free of cost. However, the colleges have remained out of this bracket so far. But here, in Puttur is a college that serves sumptuous mid-day meals to college students, that too free of cost without any help from the government.
Bellandur Government First Grade College is truly a college which stands apart due to this noble deed.
Most of the students who come to government schools and colleges are from rural and economically difficult backgrounds. Keeping this in mind, Bellanduru Govt College administrative committee contacted some generous donors and with their help, it has been running the mid-day meal programme for PU students successfully over the last two years.
As soon the term ‘free’ is prefixed, questions galore on the quality, taste and nutrition value. However, here in Bellandur College, the fact that students wait to form a beeline to get their plate full of goodness in itself talks volume on the care that is taken by the management to ensure that good quality, tasty and nutritious food is served to the students.
As many as 89 students are availing the benefits of the programme, which is not government funded. It is run purely on donations and so far generous donors have been coming forward to support the cause, both in cash and kind. Coconuts, vegetables, rice, oil etc are being donated by the ones willing to join the cause. The college has appointed two cooks, who too are paid with the donations received from donors.
In 2009, the college had started functioning in Kaniyur, but in 2014, the college was shifted to Bellandur into new premises where a separate canteen has been provided for the mid-day meal programme.
C P Jayaram Gowda, working president of the College committee says that the whole idea was to ensure that no student remained hungry for any given reason.
“We have started this great service and now we only hope this continues,” he says.
College Principal Udayshankar H is all smiles as he sees his students relish the food. He says that rice, sambhar, pickle are served everyday and on some special days there is ‘palya’. He says that it is not just students, but even lecturers relish the same food.
It may be noted that the concept of mid-day meal for college students was first started in Bellare Dr Shivaram Karanth Government First Grade College. About seven years ago, the concept of meal at Rs 2 was introduced here and today over 490 students are making use of this facility. However, Bellare Govt College has done a commendable task by serving food free of cost.
