Karimnagar Community Kitchen: Minister Ponnam Prabhakar Launches Centralized Kitchen in Karimnagar for Government School Students

Karimnagar Community Kitchen: A new centralized community kitchen has been opened at the Karimnagar Market Yard to provide breakfast to thousands of government school and junior college students. The facility was inaugurated by Telangana Minister Ponnam Prabhakar and MLA Gangula Kamalakar.

The kitchen has been built at a cost of around eight crore rupees. Hare Krishna Movement Charitable Foundation India is working as the implementation partner for the programme.

Breakfast prepared at the facility will reach 669 government schools and 11 government junior colleges across 17 mandals in the Karimnagar, Huzurabad, Choppadandi and Manakondur constituencies. Around 49,025 students are expected to receive breakfast every day.

The facility has been designed to handle large scale food preparation while maintaining hygiene and consistency. Special equipment has been installed for preparing idli, dosa, poori, bonda and sambar. Machines will also be used for washing and cutting vegetables, preparing chutney and cleaning cooking utensils.

A food testing laboratory has been set up at the kitchen to check the quality of ingredients and prepared food. A milk centre is also part of the facility.

The breakfast menu will change from day to day. Students will get idli with sambar on Monday, poori with potato kurma on Tuesday, dosa with chutney on Wednesday and upma with chutney on Thursday. Friday’s menu will include millet idli with sambar, while bonda with chutney will be served on Saturday. Milk will also be provided on alternate days.

The menu has been planned around familiar food items that students commonly eat at home. Officials said the National Institute of Nutrition was involved in developing the menu.

During the inauguration, Minister Ponnam Prabhakar served breakfast to students and ate with them. The event highlighted the government’s focus on expanding the breakfast programme for children studying in government institutions.

The school breakfast initiative was first introduced as a pilot project in Kodangal in December 2024. Officials said areas where the programme has already been implemented recorded an increase in student attendance from around 75 percent to 90 percent. They also reported improvements in punctuality and classroom concentration.

The state government is now looking at expanding the programme further. Plans have been proposed to cover around 17.72 lakh students across Telangana. The expansion is expected to include 31 large community kitchens, around 1,400 distribution vehicles and nearly 5,000 workers.

The programme is intended to help students who may arrive at school without having breakfast in the morning. Officials say regular access to nutritious food could support children’s health, attendance and concentration in classrooms.

The centralized system may also reduce the food preparation workload at individual schools. This could give teachers more time to concentrate on classroom teaching instead of spending time on food related responsibilities.

For families, particularly those where parents leave home early for work, the breakfast programme could also reduce the morning pressure of preparing food and sending children to school on time.