Akshaya Patra amongst top Midday meal NGOs in India

The Akshaya Patra Foundation had begun serving meals in 2000. Before the Supreme Court mandate, the Foundation was called to provide testimony on large scale feeding because it was already running a cooked school meal programme for 1,500 children across five government schools in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Akshaya Patra is one of the pioneer mid-day meal NGOs in India.

Akshaya Patra’s road to success:

Harvard Business School, made a case-study on Akshaya Patra and included it in its curriculum.
In 2010, it made way into India Book of Records for running the world’s largest school meal programme.
The Foundation hosted renowned personalities like Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Former President of India; His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama; Mr Bill Clinton, Former President of USA and many more.
The efforts and operational transparency maintained by the NGO received multiple national and international recognitions and awards.
3 billion cumulative meals were served in the presence of Shri Narendra Modi, Honourable Prime Minister of India in 2019.

Akshaya Patra’s kitchen burners whirr every day without a break

In a span of 19 years of its service towards providing school meals, Akshaya Patra has fed 1.8 million children studying in Government and Government-aided schools of India daily without missing even a single day in between. The 52 different kitchens of the Foundation located in 12 States and 2 Union Territories strive day-in and day-out to provide fresh and nutritious meals to children who wait for it on each school day.

Strategies used in Akshaya Patra

In order to reach a larger section of children studying in Government and Government-aided school, Akshaya Patra operates both centralised and decentralised kitchens. Out of which centralised kitchens are located in 50 cities where building large infrastructures is possible to serve children within 50km radius. These kitchens have a capacity to serve up to 1 lakh meals. Decentralised kitchens are located in remote locations namely Nayagarh in Odisha and Baran in Rajasthan. These kitchens are monitored by Akshaya Patra staff where women from Self-Help Groups (SHG) are employed to carry out the process of cleaning, cutting vegetable and cooking. The Akshaya Patra kitchens implement ISO 22000:2005 to ensure adherence to utmost safety and hygienic practices so that children receive the best quality meals.

The Akshaya Patra kitchens follow various technologies and methodologies to ensure cleanliness and hygienically prepared school meals:

Food Safety Management Systems

To equip preparation of midday meals on a large scale, mandatory routines are followed by each member in every kitchen of Akshaya Patra. Both centralised and decentralised kitchens implement Food Safety Management Systems to handle, prepare and deliver food.

Supplier Quality Management System

To ensure that the best raw materials are acquired right in the initial stages of procurement, Supplier Quality Management Systems are implemented in Akshaya Patra. This includes processes like Supplier selection, Supplier modification, Supplier rating, etc.

On implementing KAIZEN technologies, Total Production Management and 5S methodologies, Akshaya Patra has always ensured that best quality meals are delivered hygienically and safely so that children can eat hot and fresh meals and look forward to more such meals reaching them the next day.

From the time meal preparation starts, till the time hot, cooked meals reach children, you play an important role. Online donations made towards Akshaya Patra help in:

Increasing school attendance rates
Improving overall nutritional status of children
Increasing school retention rates
Ensuring that children complete their education without any breaks

It is a matter of pride on knowing that children complete their education because you were the reason behind bringing them to school every day. Gain immense pleasure and be the reason for changing lives of millions of children.