Ragi poori to jowar upma, Parliament gets a new millet menu

On the millet menu are bajre ki raab (soup), ragi dosa, ragi ghee roast, ragi thatte idli, jowar vegetable upma as starters, and, for the main course, sarson ka saag with makka/bajra/jowar ki roti (choose your bread), ragi poori with aloo ki sabzi, mix millet khichdi and bajra khichdi with garlic chutney. The desserts include kesari kheer, ragi walnut ladoo and bajre ka choorma.

Sources said the à la carte menu has been drawn up in a way that reflects the country’s culinary diversity — oats milk, soya milk, ragi matar ka shorba, bajra onion ka muthiya (Gujarat), shahi bajre ki tikki (Madhya Pradesh), ragi dosa with peanut chutney (Kerala), along with amaranth salad and korra millet salad.

The menu has been prepared by ITDC’s Montu Saini, who was executive chef for five-and-a-half years with Rashtrapati Bhavan, serving during the tenures of both Pranab Mukherjee and Ram Nath Kovind. ITDC has been running Parliament’s canteens since 2020.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the lunch hosted in Parliament. (PTI/File)

Saini said the millet menu also reflected popular demand since it drew from the response to the lunch that was hosted for MPs in the inner courtyard of Parliament House during the Winter Session. “The most sought after items were ragi walnut ladoo and bajre ke raab,” he said.

The millet dishes will be available in all Parliament canteens and will be delivered to MPs in the Central Hall. Sources said the other food outlets in the complex will have at least one millet dish in the thali. Emphasising that the new menu is all about healthier options, Saini said jaggery will replace grain sugar in the dessert dishes.

“It was the Honourable Speaker who advised that MPs should have a millet option in the menu. He wanted to go beyond just spreading awareness on millets, so we were asked to explore the possibilities and here we are with this menu, offering these dishes along with the other items we usually serve,” Pankaj Mittal, General Manager, ITDC, told The Indian Express.

Mittal said that while Parliament canteen menus always had a few millet items, once 2023 was officially declared as the International Year of Millets, “the consumption pattern has changed. People started asking for millets”.

The government hopes that the promotion of millets would help small farmers across the country. India’s millet output has fallen from 21.32 million tonnes in 2003-04 to 15.92 MT in 2021-22. India is among the top five exporters of millets in the world. The country exported millets worth $64.28 million in 2021-22, up from $59.75 million the previous year. The major millet producing states are Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.