HR&CE Minister C. Ramesh cut the ribbon at the Arulmigu Subramaniya Swamy Temple in Kundrathur, Kanchipuram, where the daily free meal count jumped from 100 to 200. The expansion isn’t just symbolic. It’s a hard increase in caloric distribution across ten high-traffic shrines, including Perur Pateeswarar in Coimbatore and Kasi Viswanatha Swamy in Choolai, Chennai. Ramesh dined with devotees immediately after the launch, signaling hands-on oversight of the welfare push.
The math is stark. The scheme now covers 5,08,350 devotees annually, a net addition of 2,25,475 people who previously went without. Before this, the same ten temples served roughly half that number. The doubling was explicitly promised during the 2026–2027 legislative assembly’s demand for grants, making this a budget-backed commitment rather than an ad-hoc charity drive.
The Annadhanam program traces back to 2002, when late Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa launched it as a mid-day meal initiative. Over two decades, successive governments upgraded it into an all-day service, but the Vijay administration’s move marks the sharpest single-year increase in beneficiary numbers. Ramesh told NDTV the expansion reinforces “compassion, equality, and service to humanity,” framing religious welfare as a core pillar of accountable governance.
The logistical scale is significant. Kitchen staff at sites like Sivanmalai Subramaniya Swamy Temple in Tiruppur and Devarajaswamy in Kanchipuram now have to prepare double the previous output. For a devotee like Lakshmi, a 67-year-old daily visitor in Choolai, the change means she and her temple group can now all eat without queuing for leftovers. “Before, we’d leave hungry by afternoon. Now the thali is full,” she said.
The next phase involves auditing kitchen capacity to ensure the doubled output doesn’t compromise hygiene or speed. The state government expects to release a detailed expenditure breakdown by June 15, 2026, as part of its mid-year welfare review. Temple trustees have been directed to submit monthly consumption reports to the HR&CE department to prevent misuse.