Bengaluru: President Pranab Mukherjee lavished praise on the first of its kind experiment in the country, the mid-day meal scheme, introduced 16 years ago by ISKCON’s Akshaya Patra scheme that puts a nutritious, cooked meal before hundreds and thousands of poor children in government schools across ten states.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation, which started it all in June 2000, provides mid-day meals to 15.2 lakh students in 13,210 schools spread over 10 states every day. As many as 1,52,041 anganwadi children in the 0-6 age group across 2,594 centres are also covered by the scheme in five states as are nearly 6,000 pregnant and lactating mothers across 298 centres in Jaipur.
Founded by Madhu Pandit Dasa, the organisation got its first major contribution from Mr Mohandas Pai, who donated a vehicle to transport the mid-day meals from its kitchens to schools in Bengaluru. Today, its customised blue buses carry hot meals to students - and their mothers.
Prez for more effort to fight hunger, poverty
Emphasising the importance of providing nutritious food to school children, President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday appreciated the Anna Bhagya and Ksheera Bhagya schemes pf the government saying they helped to build a strong society. Participating in the two billion meal event organised by the Akshaya Patra Foundation here, he said people too must contribute to the effort to eliminate poverty and unemployment in the country.
“Ask what you have done to help the needy before criticising governments for not keeping their promises,” he advised, warning that unless India solved its problems of hunger, illiteracy, disease and other social evils it could not join the elite group of countries. “'Skill and education are important. Hunger is another problem haunting our kids,” he noted.
Meanwhile traffic in the city was thrown out of gear due to the President’s visit, especially in the Central Business District and west Bengaluru. Many drivers complained that they were held up in heavy traffic on roads parallel to MG road till 5.30 pm as the HAL airport-Rajbhavan road was closed to allow VIP movement.
Feeding not just kids, moms too!
With a puffed body to reduce loss of temperature and a honeycomb structure to hold the vessels upright, the blue buses carry the food packed in stainless steel 304 grade vessels that keep it hot and fresh over long distances.
Every bus is steam-sterilised before being loaded with the packed meals. The cooking is done in both centralised and decentralized kitchens. The former are large factory-like units with a capacity to cook upto 100,000 meals a day and are semi-automated. In fact their technology and processes have become a topic of research and study in many universities like Harvard .
Decentralised kitchens, on the other hand, are run by women Self-Help Groups (SHGs) under the guidance and supervision of the foundation in the more inaccessible and less developed parts of the country.
