Madhu Pandit dasa, August 7th, 2010 — The Akshaya Patra Foundation, the largest school meal program reaching out to 1.2 million children every day across 8 states and 18 locations of India. The organization exemplifies how public private partnership can work wonders. Akshaya Patra was started as a registered charity organization of ISKCON Bangalore in the year 2000. During that time it was feeding only 1,500 children in 5 schools of Bangalore.
A few years later when the Government implemented the mid day meal program in Karnataka, they comprehended that NGOs like Akshaya Patra are already in to this field, successfully running the program. In the year 2003 the Ministry of Human Resource Development (Department of School Health and Education) extended its support to this noble cause.
Since then the Foundation expanded itself adding lakhs of children every year to its feeding list, ensuring them of a nutritious hot cooked meal every day. With the tag line “unlimited food for education” Akshaya Patra tries to bring back children to school by giving them the incentive of food.
Akshaya Patra serves an uncompromising three item menu. The organization makes sure that the child gets sufficient nutrition in the one meal that they provide every day. The average cost per meal of Akshaya Patra is 4.68 of which 2.64 is the government subsidy. As the organization does not want to compromise on the quality and nutritional value of the food, Akshaya Patra raise the remaining Rs.2.04 from individuals, corporate houses, business communities and public sectors who believes in the cause and support the movement. On an average, for every rupee you donate, 89 paisa is spent towards feeding a child, and the rest goes towards administrative and fundraising costs.
Akshaya Patra believes in absolute transparency in all their activities. Akshaya Patra has always been very particular about the accounts. The organization either returns unused rice or draw less rice for the next month. This practice is followed in all our Akshaya Patra kitchens. Secondly the Foundation attempt to increase the intake of grains by children as the government norms is to feed 100 grams per meal. The organization has experienced that the children in Bangalore, Hubli and Bellary schools do not consume 100 grams despite a three item menu including curds.
We have also informed about our experience of the actual consumption of grains in different parts of the country to the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, and New Delhi. The organization is annually audited by KPMG. It is one of the very few non profits/ NGOs on Bangalore which comply with the International Financial Standards (IFRS) and to a large extent, with the Indian Accounting Standards issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
The foundation has 15 centralized technology intensive kitchens which can make 10,000 chapatis in an hour and also prepare enough samber filled with vegetables for 6000 children in two hours. To set up such a centralized kitchen the organization requires an amount of 8 to 9 crores. Akshaya Patra does not get any funds from government to set up the kitchen infrastructure.
So, to run the show the non- profit has to go to the corporate that can help them set up such mammoth infrastructure through their CSR programs. Many corporate houses and public sector units like CISCO, BEL, BOSH, ABB, BHEL, State Bank of India, City Bank, have supported the cause and helped the Foundation to reach out to more and more children.
But unfortunately, an organization which has made such remarkable contribution to the society bringing in smile in millions of faces in only ten years of its existence is now being accused of being fraud by some people with some vested interests.
Paying no heed to such unscrupulous act Akshaya Patra moves ahead with its ambitious aim of feeding 5 million children by 2020.
More Details: http://www.akshayapatra.org
i know this organization for many years. they are doing a commendable work for removing hunger and poverty. it is painful that few people are trying to defame them with some nonsense allegations. an organization like this with such respectable personalities behind this cannot be a fraud.