3. About the Organization
The Akshaya Patra foundation is a non profit organization headquartered in
Bengaluru, India.
The organization was established in 2000.
It has been 17 years since Akshaya Patra came into force.
It operates the Midday Meal Scheme (a school lunch programme) in India.
From a small setup which fed 1500 children in 5 schools way back in 2000, Akshaya
Patra takes a leap to reach more than 1.3 million children today, across 9 states and
19 locations.
4. Akshaya Patra is the largest partner of the Government of India to implement
the Mid Day Meal scheme in government-run schools of India. The scheme is
based on a public-private partnership.
APF is run by International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON),
Bangalore.
Akshaya Patra also aims to counter malnutrition and support right to
education of children hailing from socio-economically challenging
backgrounds.
5. Reach of TAPF
Akshaya Patra reaches out to 20,10,516
children in 65 kitchens across 14 States &
2 Union Territories of India, providing
them with freshly cooked meal on all school
days. Currently, we implement the mid-day
meal programme in 22,367 schools of the
country, with plans to increase that number
to hundreds more.
6. PROBLEMS
1. How would the Akshaya Patra manage to dispose almost 750 kg of food waste
generated daily after serving ~98000 children from the center?
2. They were really vexed on how to dispose of waste generated from the
leftover food, which usually increased by 30% during winters?
3. How can the foundation be depended on more environment friendly options
opposed to the present scenario of Steam heated Cauldrons using LPG, which
created a lot of carbon monoxide in the environment?
4. Each truck had to cover an average distance of 20km to 150km everyday
from the nearest kitchen to transport hot food.
5. Pre packed food was 60% faster to prepare than food cooked hot.
7. 6. What percentage of right amount of nutrients, vitamins and minerals should
be provided in food to each and every student so that beneficiaries are not
devoid of any essential nutrients?
7. Even In 2022 still 37% villages are not easily accessible via road , bus or train.
Reaching out to places where road connectivity is not smooth was a huge
challenge?
8. What should be margin of error in the quantity of food prepared so that
wastage of food is kept to minimum ?
9. How much variety should be present in the menu so that the Children would
savor the meals ?
10. Low profitability which can hamper new project investment – Even though
Akshaya Patra financial statement is stable, but going forward Akshaya Patra 5-
7% profitability can lead to shortage of funds to invest into new projects
