Visit to Akshaya Patra by Manu & Rika

Visit to Akshaya Patra by Manu & Rika

About Akshaya Patra Foundation Akshaya Patra Foundation is an NGO headquartered in Bangalore. The organization strives to fight issues like hunger and malnutrition in India. Akshaya Patra provides mid-day meals to government schools and government aided schools, which helps bring children to school. It started in the year 2000 by serving 1500 children across 5 schools. As of today, it is the worlds largest NGO which runs mid day meal program serving food to over 1.4 million children from 10,661 schools across 10 states in India. Akshaya Patra has kitchens in 23 locations across 10 states in India. Akshaya Patra is the first NGO to have received ICAI Gold Shield Award for 5 consecutive years. It is also the first NGO to be inducted to ICAI hall of fame.

Akshaya Patra - Bangalore In Bangalore, Akshaya Patra provides mid day meals to about 200,000 children per day to nearly 1000 schools. Akshaya Patra Foundation has 2 Kitchens in Bangalore. One in Kanakpura road and one in Rajajinagar. Each kitchen serves up to 100,000 children per day They have 65 vehicles between 2 kitchens which reaches out to 1000 schools and are customized in a way to carry food that the food doesn t spill over. Kitchen in Bangalore is equipped with good technology for making the meal and safety features for the employees who work in kitchen Bangalore kitchen is equipped with Gravity model of kitchen which helps them to process food in a better and faster way with less manual intervention. They use Solar energy and Bio gas energy to cook food which is a go green initiative.

Manu & Rika s Meet with Akshaya Patra Foundation Employees Manu & Rika first met GM Operations of Akshaya Patra Foundation in Bangalore to understand their operations & how they meet the daily requirements like food grains, vegetables, etc. and more importantly funds required for running the operations. GM Operations shared the presentation with them on what is Akshaya Patra, how they operate, what's their reach and how they meet the day to day requirements and hardships faced in logistics. He showed us the entire process on how the kitchen functions, preparation of food, quality control check, packing of food in containers, dispatching it to schools, and also the safety features. Mr. Vinay also explained how they can track the core issue when it comes to schools complaining about quality of food. Every container has a batch number mentioned on it which helps them track who prepared the food, who is the supplier and they also retain a portion of the food till evening as a sample just incase any issue arise.

Manu & Rika s meet with Vice Chairman of Akshaya Patra Foundation Manu & Rika then met Vice Chairman of Akshaya Patra foundation Shri. Chanchalapati Dasa. He was very receptive and explained important responsibilities and challenges faced by the Akshaya Patra Foundation on a whole. Shri. Chanchalapati Dasa also explained how they are improving technology which helps in preparation oflarger quantities of food without compromising on quality. Akshaya Patra will be importing newer machines from Tetra Pack which is costing USD 410,000 per machine which will help them reduce manual intervention. This will start in their Hyderabad kitchen. He also explained different challenges they faced from state governments to start Akshaya Patra Foundation in other states.

Food for Virtue The day was very well spent with children who need care, love and most importantly education. Rika visited one of the schools where Akshaya Patra Foundation serves food. Rika and MSI BPO Employees helped in serving food to children which brought immense happiness both to us and the children. Children sang songs and narrated rhymes when we visited them which was very heart touching.

Akshaya Patra review All numbers are in lakhs Akshaya Patra mid-day meal program serves 1.39 million children everyday. Number of meals in 2013-14 was 2,626.52 lakhs compared to 2,476.62 in 2012-13. Government subsidy in 2013-14 was Rs.12,495.22 lakhs compared to Rs.10,365.65 in 2012-13 Donations received in 2013-14 was 10,680.26 compared to 7,470.62 in 2012-13. Asset Value increased to 16,707.66 in 2013-14 compared to 13,674.00 in 2012-13 Other Feeding Initiatives Social Initiatives Anganwadi Feeding After Class Tuitions 18000 16,707.66 Feeding Expecting Mothers Life Skills Program 16000 14000 12,495.22 13,674.00 Feeding Special Schools Subsidized lunch for economically backward Feeding Runway Children Community Health Camps Scholarship Program Health check up plans 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 10,365.65 2,626.52 2,476.62 7,470.62 10,680.26 2012-13 2013-14 Feeding Old Age Home and Homeless Disaster Relief 2000 0 No. of Meals Govt. Subsidy Donations Received Asset Value

Impact of Akshaya Patra Akshaya Patra Foundation carried out a study pertaining to the following four main objectives: 1. Elimination of Classroom Hunger 2. Social Equity 3. Nutrition & Health 4. Enrollment, Retention & Attendance Classroom Hunger :- In terms of adequacy and availability of additional food, Gujarat emerged on top. Also according to headmasters, food quantity received from Akshaya Patra Foundation was sufficient and helped in countering class room hunger. State Adequate Daily Additional Food Karnataka 96% 96% Andhra Pradesh 95.5% 95% Odisha 92% 83% Gujarat 99% 100% U.P. 91% 87% Assam 88% 86% Chhattisgarh 97% 96% 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Adequate Daily Additional Food

Impact of Akshaya Patra Social Equity :- Social equity was achieved as even government officials, headmasters, and children have food together irrespective ofcaste, religion and economic class Social Equity 100.00% 95.00% 90.00% 98.50% 94.05% 99.20% 96.50% 96.70% 95.40% 89.80% 92.20% 85.00% Karnataka Andhra Pradesh Odisha Gujarat Rajasthan U.P. Assam Chattisgarh Health & Nutrition :- All the nutrition experts and government officials have felt that mid day meals provide the right nutrition and calorie requirement. Below is the table as per dietary norms:- Components Primary Upper Primary Calories 450 calories 700 calories Protein 12 grams 20 grams Micro Nutrients Adequate quantities of micro nutrients like Iron, Folic Acid, Vitamin-A etc.

Impact of Akshaya Patra Enrollment, Retention & Attendance :- Attendance was highly regular in class and during an in depth interview done by Akshaya Patra with teachers and headmasters, they mentioned that it has significantly increased. Attendance 100.00% 95.00% 90.40% 90.60% 99.10% 99.60% 97.80% 95.00% 97.30% 98.10% 90.00% 85.00% Karnataka Andhra Pradesh Odisha Gujarat Rajasthan U.P. Assam Chattisgarh Key Outcome by State :- considering all indicators, Gujarat, Karnataka, A.P., and Chhattisgarh emerged as best performers. The graph below summarizes the results on a scale of 10. Overall Perfromance 10.00 9.50 9.00 8.50 8.00 9.57 9.57 9.29 10.00 9.86 9.43 8.71 9.86

CSR Opportunities with Akshaya Patra Strategic philanthropy through funds and in-kind contributions. Cause-marketing initiatives. Events and sponsorship. Innovations and project solutions for children. Raising Funds for the cause. MSI s plan on giving support Manu & Rika highly appreciated the efforts put by Akhaya Patra Foundation and have assured support in all means. Manu s plan is to stop people getting migrated to bigger cities in search of job which leads to more poverty. Manu has discussed with Vice Chairman of Akshaya Patra Foundation to start up a Kitchen in Chamrajnagar and other places where MSI buys material from.

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