Best meal of the day': Akshaya Patra's kitchen in Nathwara, Rajasthan is the newest of its high-technology ones across India
Article and Image Courtesy : One World South Asia
Author :
Madhusmita Hazarika
Monica Kumawat and Gopal Verma of the Ramadevi Malchand Bagri Upper Primary School are among the 32,000 students Akshaya Patra serves daily in Nathwar
It is a similar line of thought that guides the work of Akshaya Patra Foundation, an NGO in India that has been flag-bearing the cause of hunger amelioration by feeding children in government-run schools across the country.
Commencing in the year 2000, Akshaya Patra (AP) today anchors the world’s largest NGO-run mid day meal programme, feeding 1.3 million children every day in 8,000 schools, across 18 locations in eight states of India.
The meals are cooked in Akshaya Patra-owned kitchens and distributed through their trademark Blue Buses to reach the schools in time for kids to have a hot lunch. The rationale is simple – these schools mostly have students from economically backward sections, and the free meals through the Akshaya Patra programme are usually the only proper ones they get to have in a day.
This is not only an incentive for the kids to come to school; it also has other fringe benefits in terms of better nutrition and health for children, and social parity in an inter-dining classroom set-up.