Kalpetta: A controversy erupted after a community kitchen which served food for volunteers in Wayanad was closed down reportedly following the intervention of police.

The community kitchen at Kalladi was run by the 'White Guard', a charity group from Narippatta in Nadapuram, Kozhikode district. The group served food for volunteers at the disaster site in the past two days.

It was DIG North Zone Thomson Jose who reportedly directed the organizers to stop their operations. Kamarudheen, one of the organisers told Onmanorama that the official arrogantly behaved with the volunteers who were taken to his camp office at Mundakkai.

However, Revenue Minister K Rajan's PA told Onmanorama that the direction to stop the food supply as well as the community kitchen run by the NGOs was given without the knowledge of the ministerial subcommittee constituted by the cabinet. "We need more clarification over the issue which will be sorted out later,'' he added.

However, the frontline personnel including volunteers had a tough day on Sunday as food supply to the far-flung search sectors from various NGO groups came to a halt.

The Centralized Community Kitchen at Government Polytechnique, Meppadi, launched by the District Disaster Management Authority, in association with the Kerala Hotel and Restaurants Association, was struggling to feed thousands of volunteers pouring into the disaster site. The authorities had claimed earlier that they would be able to prepare as many as 1,000 food parcels at a time.

The kitchen started two days ago to supply food from a single centralized source.

Deputy Tahsildar P U Sithara who is in charge of the community kitchen said that 1,705 people had food from the facility at the kitchen on Sunday morning.

“We start supplying food for the six search zones from 6.30 am onwards using vehicles. As volunteers continued to pour in up to 11.30 am, it seems few of them failed to receive food in time,” she said.

However, sources close to district administration said that as food served by some groups yesterday was stale and may cause food infection to the police and personnel from other forces, the food inspector has directed all other agencies to operate in association with the centralized community kitchen so that quality of food could be ensured. 

Meanwhile, District Collector D R Meghasree said that the reports about search volunteers not getting food were fake. Every day sufficient food for the volunteers is being cooked and supplied. The food items supplied by individuals and private agencies at the food collection centre at Meppadi have been distributed on time, she said, adding that a team of Food Safety officials are testing and ensuring that the food items are of good quality.