Akshaya Patra – An abundant and inexhaustible vessel
The concept of Akshaya Patra probably began probably when Srila Prabhupada remarked
and desired that no one within a ten mile radius of any ISKCON center should go hungry. The Akshaya Patra Foundation (TAPF) today is the world's largest NGO-supported/run midday meal program, with a vision that - "No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger."
The Akshaya Patra Foundation came into being in the year 2000 to address two of the most immediate challenges of India - hunger and education by providing unlimited, wholesome food to attract children to schools, retain them and then focus on children's holistic development.
In June of that year, the program started with a humble beginning as a mid-day meal program in Bangalore by feeding 1500 children in 5 schools. About 15 months later in November 28, 2001 the Supreme Court of India passed an order which mandated that - "Cooked mid-day meal is to be provided in all the government and government-aided primary schools in all the states." Akshaya Patra which was then practically pioneering the cause was called-in to give testimonies to the Supreme Court in order to implement the mandate.
By the time the Ministry of Human Resource Development (Department of School Health and Education) extended its support to this noble cause in 2003, Akshaya Patra was already reaching out to 23,000 underprivileged children through the support of its donors. Akshaya Patra's India operations are headquartered in Bangalore, India and today it is reaching out tomore than 1.2 million children everyday through out the country!!!. Encouraged by the stupendous success, The Akshaya Patra Foundation has set itself an ambitious milestone - to serve 5 million children daily by 2020.
Being a public-private partnership' project, Akshaya Patra is run as a secular program and claims to combine good management, innovative technology and smart engineering to deliver school lunch at a fraction of the cost of similar programs in other parts of the world.
The Foundation claims that this program is unique in magnitude, complexity, method of delivery and approach. According to TAPF, It is a pioneering program in India's social and developmental sector, which uses technology extensively for minimizing cost, time and labor. It also claims that it has leveraged technology in cooking and delivery built global standards of supply chain efficiency and built forward and backward linkages by ensuring that procurement is done directly from the farmers for the inputs and procurement is done directly from the farmers for the inputs and delivered to the beneficiaries in the most cost-efficient manner.
According to the Foundation what distinguishes Akshaya Patra from other mid-day meal programs preceding it, is the flexibility and creativity with which the program has been conceived and executed. Where the environment is conducive, the program has incorporated a centralized approach, backed by technology-driven processes. In other situations, it has adopted a de-centralized mode of operations, to cater to the needs of the local community. Whatever be the approach, the Foundation has vociferously claimed that it ensures that it can serve the needs of the target audience in the most dignified, cost-efficient manner.
The food is cooked in centralized kitchen facilities that have been designed and engineered from scratch by the Akshaya Patra management to optimize quality and minimize cost. The facility consists of a series of mechanized steam-heated cauldrons,custom-built to cook nutrient, staple and native food most appreciated by children on a long-term basis. Mechanization has minimized human handling of food to ensure high standards of hygiene and cleanliness. Steam heating has accelerated the cooking process, enabling the Foundation to prepare meals in large scale in less than five hours. The food is packed into stainless steel containers and loaded into custom-built vehicles. Using a fleet of vehicles, food is transported to the schools within a 50 km radius. Security personnel escort each vehicle to ensure safe delivery of meals to the schools. The vehicles drop off the meals in the schools (about 20 to 25 schools per vehicle) and on their return trip pick up empty containers. The mapping of the schools to the vehicles has also been done efficiently.
The Centralized model however is technology-intensive. The automated kitchen facility is a classic example of how mechanization has improved efficiency and ensured quality. Appropriate technological considerations have governed all phases of the design and process: the choice of the cooking medium (steam), generation of steam, construction of large cauldrons, mechanized high speed cutting of vegetables, handling of cooked food, etc., to minimize human intervention and maintain high standards of cleanliness and hygiene along with custom designed vehicles, logistics to move and safely deliver cooked food on time.
In a short span of a decade, the foundation has grown to become the largest, and certainly most innovative, school lunch program in the world. The largest kitchen of Akshaya Patra is located in Hubli-Dharwad & can prepare hot meals for 185,000 students in less than five hours. The organization calims that it sources its food stocks from local markets, thereby reducing costs associated with transportation and food spoilage while supporting the local economy.
An AC Nielsen Impact Study of the program showed an improvement in school enrollment, dropout rates with a continuous increase in classroom performance'.
In an official letter signed by President Barack Obama, Akshaya Patra was heralded as "an imaginative approach that has the potential to serve as a model for other countries."
Template:
http://www.akshayapatra.org/sites/default/files/Letter-from-Obama.pdfIn 2007, Harvard Business School developed a case study for its MBA curriculum on Akshaya Patra's model for precise time management. In was also the winner of the 2008-CNBC-TV India Business Leader of the Year Award. TAPF has also been recognized by the Limca Book of World Records.
To achieve all that this foundation has managed to achieve This is simply miraculous. All glories to Srila Prabhupada, whose dream is being executed by his sincere disciples. Log on this link for more details
http://planning.up.nic.in/innovations/akshaya_patra/Executive summary - latest.pdf
Dr Jagadeesh TG
Prabhupada Dasa
RadhaKrishna Sevak
www.doctor-soul-healer.blogspot.com
www.twitter.com/drjgdsh
www.folknet.in.
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http://www.akshayapatra.org Akshaya Patra An abundant and inexhaustible vessel
By: Venkat.J
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