Dear Supporters, I wanted to share an update on the developments of our petition. As mentioned in my last update I have written a mail to all the 14 members of the Food Management Committee. I have also written to the Honourable PM separately to intervene on this issue however I have not received a response from anyone yet. Now I will be seeking appointment with one of the senior leaders of the food committee to meet and discuss the issue. I am sharing the text of the mail written to the Food Management Committee below. I have been urging you all to join me on my twitter handle @punitag17. The reason I am doing so is that every tweet that I do on this issue if you retweet will go to the PMO & food management committee members. Let them get thousands of tweets everyday and understand the importance of this issue. I also request you all to share this petition once again on your FB walls, twitter, Whatsapp groups etc and ask your known ones personally to sign & share it. With every signature adding our case will become stronger. I look forward to connect with you all on my twitter handle @punitag17 Text of my mail to the Food Management Committee Subject - Canteen Subsidy - A wrong practice which should stop now Respected Members of Parliament & Food Management Committee, I am Punit Agarwal, a responsible citizen of India & a Tax payer. I am writing this mail on behalf of all tax payers of our country to kindly re consider your decision on subsidy in the Parliament canteen. My on-line petition on this has over 163K supports and people of this country wants to see this change. URL to the petition is - change.org/canteensubsidy Parliament Canteen has received Rs 60 Crore subsidy in last 5 years. In our country where millions sleep hungry every day I feel that this subsidy in Parliament canteen is not justified. Instead we can utilize this money for our citizens who really need it. A mother who could not sleep whole night thinking her children have slept hungry again today needs it more, and there are thousands of such mothers in our country. I have heard & read your argument on this issue that it is primarily used by the staff working there, however the primary reason for this subsidy given, is a facility to our Honorable MPs which is then extended to the staff also. I urge that the canteen Menu be set in such a way that MPs pay regular price which all other citizens pay for their food and for rest staff the price be set on No Profit No Loss instead of giving subsidy from the tax payers money. Sir, Our Honorable Prime Minister is urging citizens to give up LPG subsidy so that it can benefit someone who really needs it and I stand by him on this. Till now 20 lakh citizens has given up LPG subsidy as said by our Honorable PM on Independence day from Red Fort. So if we citizens can give up subsidy our leaders should also lead with an example. The guiding principal of any subsidy is to serve better the poorest of poor and in view of it, the present subsidy in parliament canteen in no way justified. Your step towards removing this subsidy will motivate many citizens to give up their also. You are our respected leaders and we would love to follow you. As a tax payer I feel cheated on this. If Parliament canteen gets such cheap food why not extend it to other citizens also since our constitution gives equal rights to all the citizens. I am confident that you will take a note on this and consider the views of 163K+ and counting supporters of this petition. You are already working towards making India a better place to live for us and this step will give the right message to all the citizens. I Thank you for taking out time for reading this mail and I hope our views will be considered by you. Thank You Punit Agarwal - A Proud Indian New Delhi Ph – 98XXXXXX37