Elderly with dietary restrictions face food crunch

TNN | Mar 29, 2020, 01.54 PM IST

CHENNAI: It has been more than a decade since Raman Ranganathan cooked himself a meal. It was a little after his wife passed away in 2008 that the retired LIC agent - now 81 - decided to have simple, home-cooked meals catered home for the rest of his life - an arrangement that best suited his medical history with diabetes and weaning stamina.

But three days ago , for the first time in a decade, Raman's caterer in Nanganallur stopped sending him food. The decision to shut down operations was made by the caterer following the government order calling for a three-week nationwide lockdown starting March 25, and resonates with numerous other small-time caterers who for years have been sustaining senior citizens with nutritious homemade meals. "We cater to at least 15 senior citizens in a day, but decided to close because we don't want our license taken away under any circumstances, especially when neither the police nor us, seem to fully know what's allowed and what isn't," says Vinod (name changed), Raman's caterer.

On Friday, the TN government announced that food aggregator apps such as Swiggy and Zomato could deliver meals at designated time slots during the day, and small-time caterers armed with 'essential service' certificates and stickers could continue delivering cooked meals to the elderly and ailing citizens. However, ambiguity and fear are clouding caterers and their customised home-cooked meals are a big miss for elderly clients who cannot order in from regular restaurants due to medical and dietary restrictions. "I now walk over to a mess on the main road - about seven minutes from home - to buy food for the day," says Raman, even as his family members across the country worry about his exposure to infection and dietary changes in the time of the outbreak. Hit worse are lone, immobile seniors who have no house helps aiding them during the lockdown period.

Some small-time caterers allege that their delivery boys were reprimanded by police personnel regulating movement on roads, despite the provision allowing food delivery. "We had prepared meals to be delivered to our regular customers on Thursday morning but my son who was out for delivery, was pulled up by policemen and asked to go back," said a popular caterer from Mylapore. Some others are unaware of where to procure their required permits from. "We want to start operating from Sunday, but don't know where to get our passes from. Do we need to go to the Greater Chennai Corporation office or to the local police station," asked another caterer from Mylapore. On Friday, journalist and Mylapore resident Vincent D' Souza put up a Facebook post appealing to the zone DCPs to issue passes to the local caterers. On Saturday, he said that some were able to get police permission to deliver lunches between 6am and 9am and dinners between 6pm and 9pm.