From jowar vegetable upma to bajra khichdi, ragi ladoo to bajre ka choorma — these will quickly discover a place on the menu of Parliament Home canteens, alongside conventional favourites biryani and cutlets.
As the federal government promotes the manufacturing and consumption of millets – on Sunday, in his Mann Ki Baat deal with, Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned each G20 summit occasion in India would characteristic millet dishes — Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has sought a particular millet menu for Members of Parliament, who will now get to select from the brand new menu, moreover the outdated one.
On the millet menu are bajre ki raab (soup), ragi dosa, ragi ghee roast, ragi thatte idli, jowar vegetable upma as starters, and, for the principle course, sarson ka saag with makka/bajra/jowar ki roti (select your bread), ragi poori with aloo ki sabzi, combine millet khichdi and bajra khichdi with garlic chutney. The desserts embrace kesari kheer, ragi walnut ladoo and bajre ka choorma.
Sources mentioned the à la carte menu has been drawn up in a method that displays the nation’s culinary range — oats milk, soya milk, ragi matar ka shorba, bajra onion ka muthiya (Gujarat), shahi bajre ki tikki (Madhya Pradesh), ragi dosa with peanut chutney (Kerala), together with amaranth salad and korra millet salad.
The menu has been ready by ITDC’s Montu Saini, who was govt chef for five-and-a-half years with Rashtrapati Bhavan, serving in the course of the tenures of each Pranab Mukherjee and Ram Nath Kovind. ITDC has been working Parliament’s canteens since 2020.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the lunch hosted in Parliament. (PTI/File)
Saini mentioned the millet menu additionally mirrored standard demand because it drew from the response to the lunch that was hosted for MPs within the internal courtyard of Parliament Home in the course of the Winter Session. “Essentially the most wanted objects had been ragi walnut ladoo and bajre ke raab,” he mentioned.
The millet dishes might be obtainable in all Parliament canteens and might be delivered to MPs within the Central Corridor. Sources mentioned the opposite meals retailers within the advanced may have at the least one millet dish within the thali. Emphasising that the brand new menu is all about more healthy choices, Saini mentioned jaggery will exchange grain sugar within the dessert dishes.
“It was the Honourable Speaker who suggested that MPs ought to have a millet possibility within the menu. He wished to transcend simply spreading consciousness on millets, so we had been requested to discover the probabilities and right here we’re with this menu, providing these dishes together with the opposite objects we often serve,” Pankaj Mittal, Basic Supervisor, ITDC, instructed The Indian Express.
Mittal mentioned that whereas Parliament canteen menus at all times had just a few millet objects, as soon as 2023 was formally declared because the Worldwide 12 months of Millets, “the consumption sample has modified. Folks began asking for millets”.
The federal government hopes that the promotion of millets would assist small farmers throughout the nation. India’s millet output has fallen from 21.32 million tonnes in 2003-04 to fifteen.92 MT in 2021-22. India is among the many high 5 exporters of millets on this planet. The nation exported millets value $64.28 million in 2021-22, up from $59.75 million the earlier yr. The foremost millet producing states are Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
