Barely a week after the Kudumbashree Janakeeya Hotel Action Council staged a protest in front of the Secretariat, Kerala government on Wednesday cleared over 80 per cent of the unpaid subsidy for Janakeeya hotels. Minister for Local Bodies M B Rajesh said Rs 33.6 crore of the total unpaid subsidy of Rs 41 crore had been sanctioned.

Though the subsidy of Rs 10 per meal was held back since March 2022, the government officially discontinued the assistance in August this year.

Janakeeya hotels were then forced to increase the cost of a noon meal from Rs 20 to Rs 30-35. The cost was increased after the government said that the Janakeeya hotels could individually revise the price in consultation with district planning committees.

The decision was sold as part of the normalisation process after COVID. However, Janakeeya Hotels were not a COVID-induced policy measure. Instead, it was the core of the 'Hunger Free Kerala' project outlined in the 2020-21 Budget by then finance minister T M Thomas Isaac. The objective was to ensure that there was not a single starving person in Kerala in three years.

At that point, the term 'Janakeeya Hotels' was not yet coined. The proposed budget hotels were called merely 'food courts'. But the low cost nutritious lunch scheme was put in place.

"Food Department has given final shape to this scheme. This scheme will be implemented through voluntary organizations and institutions. They may freely deliver food to bedridden patients at home. Or else food courts could be established for providing meals at a maximum rate of Rs 25. At least 10% of meals should be given free through sponsorship," Isaac said in his budget speech.

He also announced that Kudumbashree will open 1000 "food courts" to provide lunch at Rs 25. The Janakeeya Hotel project was also the extension of the budget meal concept that was being experimented in Alappuzha district under Isaac's watch.

In January 2021, when Isaac stood up to deliver the last Budget Speech of the first Pinarayi Ministry, Kudumbashree had already opened 1,000 food courts and they were by then known as 'Janakeeya Hotels'.

It was seen as one of the finest embodiments of the welfarism practiced by the first Pinarayi Ministry. It was a scheme accorded the highest priority. "The support meant for Kudumbashree Janakeeya Hotels from Local Self-Government Institutions will be compulsorily made available," Isaac said in his last speech.

And in the second year of the second Pinarayi Ministry, the "compulsory support" was withdrawn. When they were flourishing, over 75,000 twenty-rupee meals were sold daily from Janakeeya Hotels. By the end of 2021, there were 1198 Janakeeya Hotels. Over 300 of them have shut down and an equal number are on the verge of closure.

Malappuram district had the highest number of hotels, 146. The subsidy arrears were also the highest for the district: Rs 6 crore. It were the hotels from Malappuram, under the aegis of Kudumbashree Janakeeya Hotel Action Council, that had staged the Secretariat protest on November 9.