ಭಂದಹಯ ನಯಮ ಆಂಗ್ಲೆಂಡ್ ಔನನಡ ಔಯಟ ಯತನ ಭಸಲಯೋತಸ Feeds 1.3 Million Children Daily Providing Access to Food, Education, and Better Futures ~ Kerry Markey Despite India‟s booming economic growth, the country is still home to millions of people suffering from the dual tragedies of malnutrition and lack of access to education. It is estimated that over 57 million children in the country are battling silently with hunger on a daily basis. Hunger impairs both their cognitive and social development and also prevents many of these children from attending school due to economic necessities. The Akshaya Patra Foundation, one of the world‟s largest NGO-run midday meal programs, believes that no child should be denied equitable access to food and education because of hunger. Started modestly in Bangalore feeding 1500 children in five schools, Akshaya Patra has grown to become one of the largest, and certainly most innovative, school lunch programs in the world. Akshaya Patra currently provides freshly prepared, nutritious meals to over 1.3 million underprivileged children daily, in 10 states, from 21 kitchens, in over 9,000 schools in India. For many children, this is their only complete meal for the day. This meal gives them an incentive to come to school, stay in school and provides them with the necessary nutrients they need to develop their cognitive abilities and to focus on learning. Anil, a student of class seven in Puri, Orissa, lives with his parents and an elder brother in a shanty town in the Balia Panda basti area. His father, Gobind, is a vendor who tries to meet the family's needs from a meager daily income of Rs. 30 to Rs. 40. Anil's family was facing an acute shortage of money and his father was unable to bear the expense of his food and education. Anil was on the verge of leaving school. That was when The Akshaya Patra Foundation mid-day meal program was introduced at the school. Anil remarks, "I am now getting one full meal a day. This has lightened my father's burden considerably, which is why now, my father is encouraging me to study and not leave school. My desire is to become a teacher, imparting knowledge to others." A public-private partnership, Akshaya Patra combines good management, innovative technology and smart engineering to deliver school lunch at a fraction of the cost of similar programs in other parts of the world. It costs Akshaya Patra only $15 to feed a child for an entire academic year. By leveraging technology in cooking and delivery, Akshaya Patra has built a scalable, low cost, mid-day feeding program which has the potential to be replicated outside of India. The hallmark of the Akshaya Patra program are the centralized kitchen facilities that have been designed and engineered to optimize quality and minimize cost, time and labor. 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. Large stainless steel cauldrons with easy tilt mechanisms prepare 1,200 liters of lentils in two hours and a specially designed roti making machine cooks up 40,000 rotis in one hour. Additionally, steam is used as a source of cooking that accelerates the cooking process, retains nutrients, and is cost effective and clean. After the food leaves the kitchen, the Akshaya Patra meal delivery system involves wellcoordinated, precision logistics using custom designed vehicles that quickly and safely deliver cooked food to schools according to a strict schedule with optimal storage and minimal spillage.
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