‘Modi Idli’ to take on ‘Amma Idli’ in Tamil Nadu’s Salem

“Every day close to 100 people would be coming to our office in need of a job, food, etc. So we thought the need of the hour was to give subsidised food with good quality. We decided to give idli, the staple food of Tamil Nadu at Rs 10 for breakfast and dinner. We purchased a state of the art equipment, and for cooking, we only use the mineral water. We wanted to give the best quality food at a subsidised price. We are doing this to help people, with best quality rice and daal,” Mahesh told indianexpress.com.

Every 6 minutes we will be dishing out 1800 idlys

— Mahesh 🇮🇳 (@Mahesh10816) August 29, 2020

When asked how this is different from the Amma Idli, a scheme that has been running for years, Mahesh said: “Amma Idli is using PDS rice and daal, they don’t have any operating cost. We are buying the highest quality rice and daal. Moreover, Amma Idli centres prepare 100 or 200 idlis per day. They say Amma Idlis are available at Re 1, but only 40 or 50 people get to eat that, whereas we will be supplying 40,000 idlis per day. The equipment, which we have purchased, cost Rs 20 lakh. With the help of the equipment, for every five minutes, we can dish out 900 idlis through three steamers. We are going to distribute this around 22 centrs in Salem. This will help everyone’s budget, money saved is money earned,” he said.

Mahesh added that the response to the ads has been fantastic and the initiative is likely to be launched by next week.