Vegetarian Cooking Course to be Introduced in Hotel Management Institutes

Addressing the rising demand for separate veg cooking courses, Tourism Ministry finally introduced a degree course for students aspiring to do a specialization in vegetarian cuisine in three hotel management institutes funded by the government from the academic session 2016.

As per the information provided by an official, Institutes of Hotel Management – Jaipur, Bhopal and Gandhinagar are the three government institutes that will offer Bachelor of Science degree in hospitality and hotel administration, which is going to be a three-year course providing a specialization in vegetarian cuisine.

Other hotel management institutes will also offer a similar course to aspiring students from the academic session 2017. Institutes will also be provided with financial aid to set up all the required infrastructure to introduce the course.

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Prior to this students were studying a common course that comprised of learning to prepare vegetarian as well as non-vegetarian cuisines.

Hotel Owners Associations and Hotel Association of India (HAI) have taken the initiative to coax the government to start offering courses that provide students with a specialization in cooking in vegetarian food only.

“The Ministry of Tourism has received some requests from Hotel associations including the HAI for considering degree/diploma courses in vegetarian/vegan cooking,” Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma had said earlier.

Nearly 300 hotels from all over the country are associated with HAI. A petition that has flown in through online means has drawn over 3,900 signatures and states that students coming from a vegetarian background are denied to study the course as their families don’t allow them to be part of a course that will bound them to cook non-vegetarian courses.

For the flexibility of such students, the petition stresses on the need of introducing a specialized course for vegetarians that will be in line with their traditional values.

There have been arguable responses from some stakeholders who think that such a course structure will depreciate the chances of students being placed in good hotels and restaurants as most of them offer mixed cuisines.