Akshaya Patra in Bangalore serves as headquarters of The Akshaya
Patra Foundation in India. The organisation runs the mid-day meal programme,
providing nutritious food to children in Government and Government aided
schools. The programme got initiated in Bangalore, Karnataka and later expanded
to several other locations in the state as well as other locations in India.
Akshaya Patra serves mid day meal
in Karnataka at six locations. It has two kitchens in Bengaluru (HK Hill and
Vasanthapura). In other parts of the state there are one kitchen each in
Ballari, Hubballi, Mangaluru and Mysuru. All these kitchens are centralised and
provide for 463,682 children across 2,629 schools every day.
The centralised kitchen at HK
Hill kitchen is the very first kitchen of Akshaya Patra Bangalore, opened in
2000, and the other kitchens followed in quick succession. The menu of the mid
day meal in this region has been modified to suit the taste of South Indian. The menu has rice, rasam (a South Indian
soup), dal (lentil curry), sambar (lentil based vegetable stew) and vegetable
dishes.
Equipped with rice cauldrons and
sambar cauldrons the kitchens prepare nutritious food to be delivered on time
to all the beneficiary schools every day. The rice cauldron usually has the
capacity of at least 500 litres and sambar cauldron the capacity to cook 1,200
litres to 3,000 litres of sambar.
A standard process for preparing
the mid-day meal in Karnataka has been followed meticulously by all the
kitchens. This process is to ensure hygiene and quality of the cooked meal.
Adherence to the food safety standards is maintained at all times in all the
kitchens Akshaya Patra operates.
The successfully implementation
of the programme can be measured by the magnitude of the operations and the
numbers of children Akshaya Patra is feeding every day in India. The
organisation provides food for education to 1.4 million children from 24
locations in 10 states across India. With the vision that no child in India
shall be deprived of education because of hunger Akshaya Patra moves towards
achieving its mission of feeding 5 million children by 2020. From Akshaya Patra
Bangalore, It’s Akshaya Patra India now.
