Atal Canteen: Why Delhi needs Rs 5 meals

Key points

• A bag of salt is nearly emptied into a vat of boiling water, full of red lentils softening and plumping, as the staff mops, wipes, peels, chops.
• Bouffant caps are on and aprons tied—this kitchen in South Delhi has been clattering since sunrise.
• The manager, Manoj, 34, walks in at 1 pm in pyjamas and talks to his deputy before going to the whiteboard to wipe out the lunch items and write in the dinner ones.
• He starts roaming the facility with his head down, texting van drivers who would soon come back from the canteens, and inspects the roti machine running the length of a wall, the potato-peeler grunting with each load expelled, the toothed tray mashing ginger, garlic, chillies into paste.
• His previous job was in a similar line at a railway canteen in Mathura, and this is just another day in...