Promoted by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the Akshaya Patra Foundation, Bangalore (estb. 2000) has engineered a unique public-private partnership model to provide free mid-day meals to 1.4 million primary school children in ten states Paromita Sengupta In the 15 years since it undertook to provide cooked mid-day meals to 1.4 million children in 10,600 primary schools in Karnataka, Andhra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Odisha, Telangana and Assam, Bangalore-based NGO The Akshaya Patra Foundation (TAPF, estb.2000) has engineered a public-private partnership model which has dramatically improved student enrolments in primary schools in ten states by 22 percent during the past four years. TAPF is a not-for-profit, secular trust promoted by the Bangalore unit of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), aka the global Hare Krishna movement. ISKCON was founded in 1966 by A.C. Bhaktivedanta (aka Srila Prabhupada) in New York to spread the message of Bhakti Yoga whose tenets require all bhakts to dedicate their thoughts and activities to please Lord Krishna who, according to the Bhagavad Gita which incorporates the Krishna Leela (tales of Krishna), enjoyed a very happy childhood. Currently, ISKCON is a global confederation of over 550 centres, 60 farming communities, 50 schools and 90 vegetarian restaurants. In the millennium year, after 126 nations signed the United Nations Millennium Declaration and enunciated its five Millennium Development Goals which included all children in primary schools and eradication of child malnutrition by 2015, Madhu Pandit Dasa and Chanchalapathi Dasa, trustees of ISKCON, Bangalore were persuaded by several business leaders of the garden city (including T.V. Mohandas Pai and Abhay Jain (founder-trustees), Ramadas Kamath, V. Balakrishnan and Raj P. Kondur) to promote the Akshaya Patra Foundation (“inexhaustible vessel” in Sanskrit) to provide free cooked mid-day meals to 1,500 children in five government schools in Bangalore. Moreover, it was the aspiration of Srila Prabhupada that no child should go hungry within ten miles of ISKCON centres. Since then, TAPF has partnered with the Central and state governments, corporates, individual donors, small and medium-scale enterprises to raise a corpus of Rs.79 crore for enabling and expanding the free mid-day meals programme to serve 1.40 million children in government and aided schools in ten states through its 24 centres across India. By employing mass production and modern assembly line technologies in hi-tech Swedish-style stainless steel kitchens, voluntary community service and sophisticated logistics, TAPF delivers nutritious meals to over a million children at a rock-bottom cost (to the foundation) of Rs.750 per child for 232 days which is topped up by state government subsidies averaging Rs.1,016 per child. For state governments which in their other primaries expend an average Rs.7.40 per child for the mid-day meal, the public-private partnership with TAPF enables a saving of Rs.3.01 per day. “I attribute the success of India’s largest NGO-run mid-day meals programme to the commitment and dedication of ISKCON missionaries, and the professionalism and best practices we have adopted from the corporate sector with the aid and advice of our trustees. We are proud…
