Flipkart Co-Founder and Chairman visits Akshaya Patra Kitchen

Mr Bansal distributes chocolates to children of Akshaya Patra beneficiary school, Government Higher Primary School, Konunkunte, Bengaluru.

Mr Sachin Bansal (fifth from right), Co-founder and Chairman, Flipkart, poses with Team Akshaya Patra for the camera.

The kids of Government Higher Primary School, Konunkunte, Bengaluru, queue up eagerly for their lunch, served by Mr Bansal.

Mr Bansal interacting with members of Team Akshaya Patra to know the workings of the organization.

For more details, visit: Sachin Bansal visits Akshaya Patra kitchen

6 Things You Should Know About Akshaya Patra in Hyderabad

“You can’t build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery.” -- Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug

Did you know that every 10 seconds we lose a child to hunger? Many NGOs are moving in this direction in order to fight off hunger. Akshaya Patra too rose up to the mission of the eradication of hunger at the grass root level. 

Akshaya Patra is a Non-Profit Organisation which runs Mid-Day Meal Programme in government schools and government-aided primary schools for children. The Government of India and various state governments are supporting the organisation to accomplish its goal of feeding millions of children and building a healthy India. Many philanthropic donors have come forward and contributed to this charity for children. The foundation kept its first stone in Bengaluru in the year 2000 and till date it has 25 kitchens across 10 states in India including Telangana. It extended the NGO in Hyderabad by building a centralised kitchen in October 2008. 

Here’s what you need to know about Akshaya Patra in Hyderabad.

1. The first footprints of the NGO in Hyderabad

With the vision “No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger,” Akshaya Patra propelled its branches to 10 states in India including the newly formed 29th state Telangana. It started its centralised kitchen unit in Hyderabad in the year 2008. The Akshaya Patra Kitchen prepares wholesome mid-day meals to government schools and Anganwadi children. 

2. Supplying food to thousands of underfed children

Akshaya Patra in Telangana currently feeds 62,020 children across 463 government schools and 25,768 Anganwadi children every day, through its centralised kitchen in Hyderabad. The NGO has its own 23 custom-made vehicles for the distribution of the mid-day meals to every classroom. Several generous supporters have contributed to Akshaya Patra’s programme of eliminating classroom hunger. It needs more hands to reach out to more children. You may choose to sponsor a child and take responsibility for providing him food and a healthy life. 

3. Inside the Akshaya Patra’s kitchen

The Akshaya Patra’s centralised kitchen in Hyderabad is equipped with state-of-the-art machinery perfected to cook an enormous amount of food for thousands of children at the same time. Though the huge quantity of food is supplied to thousands of classrooms from the single kitchen, the NGO doesn’t compromise with the quality and required nutrition. Feeding the hungry isn’t their only motive; they supply hygienic food containing all the required nutrients to children to ensure a good health. 

4. When a state-wide change began from Hyderabad 

In order to serve its mission of feeding 5 million hungry children by the year 2020, Akshaya Patra started building its kitchen in several states of India including Telangana. The NGO built the state’s first centralised kitchen in Hyderabad and now undertakes this charity for children with support from philanthropic donors along with the support from the state and central government. Hunger hasn’t ended yet but has definitely been thwarted to a great extent and would be rooted out with more support.

5.  Recognition of Akshaya Patra’s work and its kitchen

Several authorities have visited Akshaya Patra's huge centralised kitchen equipped with technologically advanced machinery. Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation commissioner for the state visited the kitchen and appreciated the foundation’s endeavor of supplying cooked food to underfed children. The GHMC commissioner was moved by the dedication and efforts of the foundation towards changing the lives of children. Akshaya Patra is indebted to the state and the central government for their immense support.

6. Helping Hyderabad’s charity for children

Akshaya Patra needs more hands for continuing to work in Hyderabad. You may participate in the great cause and support it. You may choose to donate a little part of your income and take the responsibility of a child. 

Sponsoring a child takes Rs 750 that is used to feed a child throughout the year. Besides, on donating Rs 500 or above to Akshaya Patra, you become eligible for 100% tax exemption.

10 Things to Know About Akshaya Patra in Karnataka

Currently spread across 10 states in India, The Akshaya Patra Foundation (TAPF), an NGO which runs the world’s largest mid-day meal programme, had humble beginnings in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Here’s how its presence in the state grew and strengthened.

1. Akshaya Patra was launched in Namma Bengaluru, Karnataka, in the year 2000, inspired by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s vow that no one within a 10-mile radius of his centre should go hungry.

2. The organisation had a modest start, serving free, healthy and nutritious mid-day meals to the schoolchildren of five government schools in Bengaluru initially. 

3. The road towards feeding children in the state was a rocky one in the early days. However, support arrived in the form of T.V. Mohandas Pa, former member of the Board of Directors of Infosys and currently, the Chairman of Manipal Global Education Services, who donated the first vehicle for transporting cooked food to schools.

4. By 2004, Akshaya Patra had established itself as a formidable NGO in Karnataka and catered to the mid-day meal needs of children in the cities of Hubballi, Mangaluru and Mysuru. In 2006, this charity for children also had a kitchen in Ballari. 

5. Akshaya Patra prepares its tasty and wholesome mid-day meals in its kitchens in Karnataka, where the staff follows a strict protocol for maintaining hygiene. They wear hair caps, face masks, gloves, gum boots and other protective gear, along with showering daily and washing their hands regularly.

6. Four of Akshaya Patra’s kitchens in Karnataka are International Organization for Standardization –certified (ISO). These kitchens are – the HK Hill kitchen and Vasanthapura kitchen in Bengaluru, along with the ones in Ballari and Hubballi.

7. The Karnataka kitchens of Akshaya Patra are all centralised kitchens that are able to produce up to one million meals. They utilise minimal human intervention, as they are mechanised cooking units.

8. Karnataka has the highest number of Akshaya Patra’s beneficiaries. In Bengaluru, the HK Hill kitchen feeds 92,856 children in 466 schools, while the Vasanthapura kitchen feeds 101,635 children in 534 schools. The Hubballi kitchen cooks mid-day meals for 149,573 children in 789 schools; the Mangaluru kitchen prepares meals for 22,602 children in 147 schools, while the Mysuru kitchen feeds 16,668 schoolchildren in 66 schools. The Ballari kitchen cooks meals for 126,382 children in 534 schools. 

9. Numerous dignitaries have visited Akshaya Patra’s kitchens in Karnataka. These include former Indian President, the late APJ Abdul Kalam; Nobel laureate Muhammed Yunus, musicians Sona Mohapatra and Ram Sampath, among others.

10. Akshaya Patra’s pilot initiative, Giving Every Dream A Chance, where The Foundation makes the dreams of school children come true by organising a month-long mentorship programme for them, was launched in Karnataka.

NetApp and Akshaya Patra Join Hands

On July 12, 2016, The Akshaya Patra Foundation, an NGO in India welcomed NetApp to its VK Hill kitchen in Bengaluru to recognise their corporate-NGO partnership.

NetApp, a multinational data storage and cloud solutions company, donated insulated vessels along with other items to Akshaya Patra to facilitate operations. The event on Tuesday commenced with lighting of the lamp and a tour of the Vasanthpura kitchen facility. Apart from NGO donations, nearly 40 volunteers from NetApp visit Akshaya Patra on a monthly basis and contribute towards pre-processing activities in the kitchen. Volunteers spend the day cleaning cauldrons and vessels, segregating pulses, and dehusking coconuts.

NetApp employees visited Kaggalipura High School in Bengaluru on the same day and shared mid-day meals with over 400 students. During the visit, the beneficiary children received many chocolates and stationery kits which elated their mood. “It was an unbelievable experience to see what it takes to do. We are glad to be associated with Akshaya Patra and would like to go a long way and lend support in all possible ways,” said Deepak Visweswaraiah – VP Engineering and Managing Director, NetApp India.

Harish Arora - VP, NB ONTAP Engineering and Sonali De Sarker - Director, Human Resources were highly impressed with the food safety methodology and hygiene which are a priority in all Akshaya Patra’s kitchens. A first-time volunteer, Srinivas BK said, “Seeing the smiles on their faces made my day.” Other volunteers shared similar insights and described their experience as unique, satisfying and fulfilling. 

After a vote of thanks by Vinay N Kumar, Director – Operations and Sundeep Talwar, Chief Marketing Officer on behalf of Akshaya Patra, the meaningful event was closed. The Foundation is thankful to NetApp for their contribution towards the mid-day meal programme and looks forward to building a hunger-free nation by feeding the future. 

Source: www.akshayapatra.org/events/netapp-partners-with-akshaya-patra

Fascinating World of Akshaya Patra's Mega Kitchens

This photo blog is a visual inspiration for all those who are intrigued and fascinated by our colossal kitchens. This blog will give you an intimate look into an Akshaya Patra kitchen, with photographs of how exactly we accomplish feeding 1.5 million children daily!

22 kitchens

Starts cooking at 3 am

Mid-day meal will be ready by 9 am

To know more about the kitchens, visit: Akshaya Patra's Mega Kitchens

Akshaya Patra Observes National Technology Day

Every year National Technology Day is observed on May 11^th to bring awareness about the significance of science and technology in daily life as well as motivate students in learning science. The day also commemorates the history of India's technological capability.

Technology includes the tools, machines, instruments, transporting devices and the skills by which we use them in our day to day life.  Use of technology helps in optimizing quality, minimising cost, efficient use of space, time and labour. In kitchens, technology has spread its efficient hands making work easier and utilizing smart engineering techniques to maintain quality as well as reducing costs. So technology driven ventures are the part and parcel of Akshaya Patra kitchen, which serves 1.5 million children in 11360 schools across 10 states in India in 24 locations.

There are centralised and decentralised kitchen catering to particular localities. All the centralised kitchens are fully automated and equipped with cauldrons, trolleys, rice chutes, dal/sambar tanks, cutting boards, knives and other equipment’s. Cooking takes place in mechanized, steam heated cauldrons custom built to save time. Steam is used as a source of cooking, which accelerates the cooking process, retains nutrients as well as cost-effective and clean. Large stainless steel cauldrons with easy-tilt mechanisms prepare 1,200 litres of lentils in two hours and a specially designed roti-making machine cooks up 40,000 rotis in one hour. These fully automated kitchens can prepare 185,000 meals in less than five hours by utilizing gravity flow mechanisms to minimize human handling of food, mechanized high-speed cutting of vegetables and conveyor belts for easy transportation. All raw materials are accepted only after Quality Inspection in order to meet Food Safety Standards Act. Till date, twelve of the Akshaya Patra kitchens have received FSMS ISO 22000:2005 certification.

The cooked food is packed in steam sterilised customized transport vehicles which have a puffed body that will reduce temperature loss and a honeycomb structure to hold the vessels upright and keep the freshness of the cooked meal intact.

Logistic charting and GPRS are used to ensure safe and quick delivery of cooked food to schools. Route simulation software is used to minimize fuel consumption and cost. The kitchen technology implements Kaizen, CI Projects and Six Sigma methodologies to ensure precision and quality. Training is an integral part of efficient use of technology. Training on 5S, GMP, Lean and Kaizen, and ISO 22000 awareness are given for kitchen employees.

Akshaya Patra kitchens have adopted several environmentally friendly practices. There are solar plants to reduce dependency on bio-fuels Most of the kitchen uses Briquette run boilers, fuelled by groundnut husk or rice bran instead of diesel. Rain water is harvested and re-routed into a pond, recharging bore-wells and reducing dependency on water. Recycling of water is done using Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) and the waste water is used for washing vehicles used to transport the food. . ‘Bio Oorja’ kitchen stoves that use biomass pellets as fuel are used which helped in minimizing fuel cost by 50%. Smokeless stoves are being piloted to reduce the dependency on LPG. In some kitchens, furnace is being fed with briquettes, which are made from bagasse, the fibrous by-product of the sugarcane industry which is being efficiently used here as bio-fuel.

Technological innovation measures are implemented that has the capacity to produce 70 units of power a day which is used to run all the applications in the kitchen. The plant runs through the use of photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight to direct current electricity. LED lights have been installed in the kitchens that are extremely energy efficient.

Akshaya Patra reaches out to millions of children in 24 locations across 10 states of India, providing them with freshly cooked meal on all school days. The mechanized kitchen can efficiently cook nutritious meals for multitudes of children at a low-cost and also very hygienically which has been designed and engineered to optimize quality and minimize cost, time and labour. This not-for-profit organisation has been conferred as the world’s largest NGO-run mid-day meal programme that utilizes innovative technology, smart engineering and good management to reach and continue to grow its current levels of service delivery and keep costs low. Technology has been brought in wherever possible to cut down costs, bring in speed and scale up operations. The application of technology in Akshaya Patra's kitchens has helped the organisation in reaching out to more and more children and it can feed 5 million children by 2020.

Akshaya Patra uses Technology to Feed Millions

The Akshaya Patra Foundation is the world’s largest Mid-Day Meal Programme. The Foundation was borne out of a desire that children should not have to choose between hunger and education. Therefore from the vision that ‘No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger’ Akshaya Patra was started in the year 2000. Beginning with feeding just 1,500 children across 5 schools in Bengaluru, today the Foundation has grown to feed over 1.4 million children across 24 locations, and 10 states of India.

Akshaya Patra aims to end classroom hunger in India through mid-day meal programme. Leveraging technology to facilitate large scale cooking in a short amount of time, The Akshaya Patra Foundation has served as a case study to prestigious institutes for its operations model. Based on a successful Public-Private Partnership model with the Central and State Governments of India, corporates, donors and other stake holders, the Foundation has managed to scale up and sustain its operations over the past 15 years.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation also uses innovative technology to maintain absolute hygiene and efficiency in its practices. 22 of the 24 kitchens are centralised, and are highly mechanised. This reduces human contact with the food to a large extent, ensuring that the food remains safe and hygienic throughout the cooking process. At Akshaya Patra it is also understood that the food must be enjoyable too, therefore the organisation follows a North and South Indian menu to suit the local palate.

To end child hunger in India, the support from the society plays an important role. Support Us.

Nutrition for Children on Nutrition Week

Today India is a one of the fastest developing economy in the world. But for the progress, it is stained by malnutrition of millions of its people especially children. India is home to 400 million children, out of which every second child is malnourished due to lack of proper nutrition. Nutritious food is essential for children’s growth and health. Food nutrition and health are connected to the core.

Classroom hunger is a serious issue in India. Hunger keeps children away from school. They cannot concentrate or analyse information when their bellies are starved of food. The solution is to provide food for children in school and ensure that they get nutrition in schools. The mid-day meal programme of the Government of India, taken up by NGOs across the country aims to food nutrition and ensuring health. The Akshaya Patra Foundation in aegis with governments provides the free, tasty and nutritious mid-day meal at government, and government aided schools.

This food for children acts as an incentive for parents to send their children to school. It combats malnutrition in children and provides access to education too. By gaining regular access to sufficient nutrition in schools, the children have shown better concentration in class and academic progress; attendance have improved as well as school enrolment and school dropout rates have decreased.

The Akshaya Patra Kitchen maintains proper quality and food safety. At every stage of the operations process quality measures are implemented to make the Akshaya Patra food safe, nutritious and tasty.

With the determined efforts of the Government of India, corporates, donors and other well-wishers, India can one day achieve a hunger free society.

This Nutrition week provides all an opportunity to donate to charity and help the children. One can make adonation this week and ensure children to get proper nutrition. Donate to ngo, Akshaya Patra which is implementing the Mid-Day Meal Programme in order to eliminate classroom hunger.

Let’s make a pledge to donate to help children get proper nutrition and education today!

Akshaya Patra kitchen facility in earthquake-hit Nepal

The Akshaya Patra Foundation has always considered relief requests on high priority. Over the last 15 years of its existence, Akshaya Patra has been seen as an active relief provider in terms of food apart from its core cause of providing mid-day meal to Government school children.

Akshaya Patra has been continuously striving towards providing food relief to the earthquake  affected citizens of Nepal. Following the first devastating earthquake on the 25th of April, the Foundation send across 100,000 cooked meals to Nepal and later an additional 2,500 kilograms of emergency food aid was also provided to the region. The two high magnitude earthquakes each of 7.8 and 7.3 left the Himalayan kingdom in a devastating turmoil. The decision and conceptualization of setting up an Akshaya Patra kitchen came by after a joint committee comprising of members from Jamsetji Tata Trust, Sipradian Sahayata Sanstha and Akshaya Patra witnessed the unsafe and unhygienic condition where women are cooking food with the available materials. Over 55,000 Nepalese citizens have gone homeless and there is considerable shortage of food and clean drinking water. 

In view of the needful situation, The Jamsetji Tata Trust requested Akshaya Patra to set up and begin operation in the affected areas. Thus with the support of the Jamsetji Tata Trust and Sipradian Sahayata Sanstha, Akshaya Patra is constructing its kitchen facility in Bhaktapur, a location 14 kilometres away from Kathmandu. This Akshaya Patra kitchen will have the capacity to provide up to 100,000 meals per day to the affected people of Nepal. This kitchen will come by as huge relief aid in terms of safe, hygienic and healthy meals for the people of the Himalayan kingdom. 

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