Nothing cooking at Ayodhya's food hub

The food hub is adjacent to the Ram Katha Park in the Naya Ghat area

ITDC INDIA EPRESS/ ITDC NEWS Among the many adjectives, the media used to describe it were ‘unique’ and ‘historical’, yet more than a week after it was inaugurated amidst fanfare, Ayodhya’s Food Hub remains non-functional.

On November 27, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath inaugurated the food hub, where 20 orange push carts, festooned with marigold flowers, stood against orange balloons. On the same visit, he had given a call for making Ayodhya the most beautiful city and assured that there was no paucity of funds for the same.

The food hub is adjacent to the Ram Katha Park in the Naya Ghat area.

It is part of the Clean Street Food Hub initiative of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) which aims to ‘raise the quality of street food vending to the level of food courts and established hotels and restaurants' so that street food vending in the country is revolutionised.

Undertaken in association with the local municipal corporation and the food and drugs administration department, Ayodhya’s food hub was touted as a one-stop destination for food from the North and the South, Chinese dishes, fast food, chaat, fruit drinks and the like.

The number of food carts at the hub is to be 32. As per the FSSAI guidelines, the minimum number required for a food cluster is 20.

On the day of the inauguration, the shutters of all carts had gone up, and pans sizzled with food while the vendors expressed their gratitude to the CM.

Manik Chand Singh, additional director of the food department said, “This is one place where people from all strata of society will come together to relish delicacies from around the country”.

There is ample parking area at the food hub.