Best meal of the day': Akshaya Patra's kitchen in Nathwara, Rajasthan is the newest of its high-technology ones across India

In a country of 1.2 billion people, fast moving towards economic superpower hood, it is a reality check, and a hard one too, that the mover and shaker of things here remains nothing but food. Indeed it is food alone that spawns a giant ripple effect – starting from the levels of education and health to eventually how development in the country finally shapes up. For, you cannot build a country on empty stomachs.

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Updated on:

19 Mar 2012, 4:53 am

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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

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.