With hotel business among the worst-affected sectors by the pandemic, Uttarakhand -- which estimates suggest accounts for up to 50% of the industry workforce — is seeing an influx of unemployed chefs and cooks return to the hill state. In the past two months, as many as 1 lakh people who were manning kitchens in hotels and restaurants in metro cities have returned.
According to Chefs’ Association of Garhwal, at least three lakh people from Uttarakhand were working as chefs outside the state or abroad before the pandemic. “The number is expected to have plunged to less than two lakh now,” said Vikas Kuriyal, president of the association.
In fact, a returnee chef can probably be found in every quarantine center in the state. K S Agarwal, in charge of a quarantine center in Dehradun, told TOI that of 16 passengers who flew in from other states and were brought to the center on May 30, at least nine had been working as chefs in the metro cities.
Hotel management is a popular choice of career in the hill state which has four government-run hotel management institutes and several private ones. The colleges churn out an estimated 5,000 graduates every year.
The out-of-work chefs have now sought help from the government under various employment and funding schemes to start ventures related to poultry farming and dairy. The district administration in Dehradun alone has received several such applications. Chief development officer (Dehradun), Nitika Khandelwal, told TOI that of the 2,000 applications they received in May and June, a sizable number was from those previously employed in the hotel and hospitality sector. “We have approved 39 projects in the first round,” she said, adding that preference is being given to ideas that would generate employment.
Many chefs TOI spoke to said they did not want to return to cities in these uncertain times and with few employment opportunities back home, government funding for their own ventures was their only hope. “I spent six years in Delhi as a chef but my hotel closed during the lockdown, forcing me to return. I was earning well but now there is no clarity on when normalcy will return and whether I will still have a job if I go back. So I have applied for seed funding for poultry business,” said Sundar Singh Sobat from Tehri district’s Ramol village.
In Kandarsyun village, Maan Singh Kandari, who lost his job in China’s Xian as a chef, said at least 13 people from his village —all of whom were employed as chefs in metros — have returned home and are now unemployed like him.
Bablu Negi, who worked in a five-star hotel as a chef in China’s Wuhan and returned in an evacuation flight in February, told TOI from Khand village in Tehri that he has been living on his savings for the past few months. “I have to take care of my parents, a disabled brother, wife, and two kids. We have fallen on hard times.”
The Chefs’ Association of Garhwal is now helping returnee chefs look for alternate employment. “I get as many as 15 calls every day from those who had been employed in the hospitality business in metro cities but came back during the lockdown. I’m helping connect them with employers as well as providing them training on authentic recipes from the hill state to boost their chances of employment,” said Kuriyal.
This post first appeared in India Times.
