Soup kitchen in Little India serves free meals to 4,000 migrant workers daily

Over 5,000 expected to attend its annual Deepavali fiesta in Hindoo Road

- Koh Ming Lun

At 4.30am, when most of Singapore is asleep, a shophouse in Little India stirs to life.

The clanking of rice pots breaks the silence of the early morning, as the aroma of masala fills the air.

By 5.45am, soup kitchen Krsna's Free Meals is already serving breakfast to migrant workers, some of whom travel to Little India to collect their meals after the night shift.

The initiative was started in 2018 by Ms Latha Govindasamy, her two sisters and their husbands with the aim of serving breakfast, lunch and dinner daily for migrant workers in the area.

While there are organisations that help these workers with medical issues or disputes with employers, Ms Latha felt that there was a lack of affordable food options for them on a daily basis.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, her soup kitchen delivered food packets to migrant workers who could not leave their dormitories.

In 2023, Ms Latha, 56, quit being a private tutor to devote her energy fully to running the soup kitchen, which is now a charity. She had taught in a secondary school before giving tuition.

Her sisters, Ms Chandralatika Devi Dasi, 62, and Ms Gandhini Devi Dasi, 59, had been volunteering as cooks at the temple where Ms Chandralatika’s husband, Mr Raghupati Das, 62, had worked as an accountant.

Ms Gandhini’s husband, Mr Lee Chee Seng, a 59-year-old logistics supervisor, collected vegetables donated by vendors at Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre twice a week.

The family dipped into their own savings to start the soup kitchen, declining to disclose the amount, but they have been able to fully rely on public donations since 2021.