Years
ago, one day in Mayapur, a village near Calcutta, a group of poor children were
fighting desperately with street dogs for leftovers of food. Fortunately for
the boys, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of
ISKCON, happened to see this ordinary yet heart-breaking incident from a far
away window. His Divine Grace decided at once not only to feed those poor
children but also to see to it that no man within a radius of ten miles from
any of ISKCON Centers would ever go hungry. Soon that noble resolution transformed
into the process of serving free food at all ISKCON Centers. Years later, in
2000, some of his devoted followers endeavoured to take this philanthropic action of their Guru a step
forward and thus come into existence what we today know as The Akshaya Patra Foundation.
As the World
Hunger Day (28th May) draws near, it’s time we took a serious look at one of
the world’s best NGOs operating in India fighting to reduce hunger and malnutrition
amongst children. While the government of India runs the Mid-Day Meal Scheme which feeds 120 million students every day
across the nation, The Akshaya Patra Foundation, a Bangalore based non-profit
organisation is its largest NGO partner providing meals to 1.4 million students
spread across 24 locations in 10 states in India, covering 10,770 Government
schools and Government-aided schools. It must be noted that Akshaya Patra began
providing cooked, nutritious meals on its own initiative for 1,500 school children
in Bangalore as far back as 2000, while the Government of India started
implementing its Mid-Day Meal Scheme only in 2004.
At Akshaya
Patra, the practice of food preparation and distribution are conducted strictly
in keeping with world standards of
quality and hygiene with emphasis that every meal prepared needs to be
completely safe, nutritious and tasty at the same time. Akshaya Patra – a term
which comes from the Mahabharata and which means an inexhaustible bowl of food,
much in keeping with its name, allows as many helpings as the children want, as
long as the food doesn’t go wasted by them. This wholesome meal is often the only
source of nutrition for the whole day for many of the organisation's
beneficiaries, the children hailing from poor families. Therefore the menu is
developed keeping in mind the nutritious needs of growing children, the local
food habits prevalent in each state, the need for variety and the inclusion of
special additional dishes like dessert twice a week to break monotony.
The Foundation
runs its operations through two kitchen models – Centralised and
De-centralised. Centralised kitchens are large factory-like kitchen units that
have the capacity to typically cook up to 1,00,000 meals a day. The Technology and Process used in
centralised kitchens have been a topic of research and study in the course
curriculum of many renowned universities such as the Harvard Business School. Locations
where factors like unfavourable geographical terrain and improper road connectivity
don’t support construction of large infrastructure, de-centralised kitchens are
set up. De-centralised kitchen units are run by local Women Self-Help Groups
(SHGs) under the guidance and supervision of Akshaya Patra’s Kitchen Process
and Operations Module.
Its
ISO-certified, semi-automated, centralised kitchens are equipped with advanced
technology to prepare hygienic meals for large-scale feeding. Standardised Procedures are in place
for management of every part of the process, be it collection of vegetables,
storing of grains, cooking, transport or distribution of food. Food Safety
Management Systems are implemented in all the kitchens in order to handle,
prepare and deliver food. All cauldrons, trolleys, rice chutes, dal/sambar
tanks, cutting boards, knives and other instruments in these units are
sanitised before usage every single day. The raw materials that are procured
are of the best quality and to ensure this a robust Supplier Quality Management
System (SQMS) is implemented. The blue bus is a customised transport vehicle of
Akshaya Patra specially designed to deliver food that is packed in stainless
steel 304 Grade vessels which can keep food hot and fresh for long intervals of
time. Every vehicle is steam-sterilised before the loading process. The vehicle
uses a puffed body to reduce loss of temperature and a honeycomb structure to
hold the vessels upright and keep the freshness of the cooked meal intact till
it is served. The quality of work of this NGO is so much recognised that
Akshaya Patra has been appointed a member of the National
Steering-cum-Monitoring Committee (NSMC) for the Govenment’s Mid-Day Meal Programme.
It’s heartening
to find that Akshaya Patra fully understands that along with quality of
performance, Transparency is the key
to trust and reliability for any organisation. Akshaya Patra hence upholds
absolute transparency in all its activities. For this purpose, they comply with
the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The IFRS reporting
which was adopted in 2008-09 has contributed substantially in building
confidence amongst the stakeholders of the organisation. They also comply with
the Indian Accounting Standards issued by the Institute of Chartered
Accountants of India (ICAI) and are up to date on accounting standards. At the
end of each financial year an Annual Report with financial audits and
statements is published and made available to the stakeholders. The
organisation is so highly transparent that it makes available to the public not
only its financial information but also all its intellectual property.
Akshaya Patra
strives to ensure that stringent measures are in place, to meet the highest
standards of transparency, accountability and management throughout all its
branches. Towards this end they have set up an efficient Internal Control (Audit System). In order to ensure the
effectiveness of the internal controls, the organisation has appointed
Chartered Accountant firms of repute, as Branch Auditors. The Branch Auditors
submit the audited reports of their respective branches to the management
periodically. These reports are then reviewed by the Audit Committee. The Audit
Committee is a sub-committee of the Board of Trustees that was formed to ensure
the effectiveness of the internal control environment.
Akshaya Patra
lays utmost importance on Good
Governance. Its governance practices are based on a set of clearly defined
and diligently drafted philosophy, methods, laws, rules & regulations that
enables the organisation to perform efficiently and ethically, and create value
for all its stakeholders. The organisation’s Executive Management Team consists
of individuals with specific skills in fields of Management, Operations,
Finance, Communications and the like. Their knowledge base, along with the guidance
and dedication of the Unit Presidents, helps in the operation of the
organisation in an efficient manner and ensures best usage of resources. Quite
unlike with most other NGOs, at Akshaya Patra, on an average, 82% of the total
cost is used towards meeting the programme cost, 14% is utilised as programme
management cost and only 4% of the total cost is steered towards meeting
fundraising and communication costs.
Akshaya Patra is
focused on and has been successful in meeting the objectives of eliminating
class-room hunger, increasing enrolment, improving attendance, improving
socialisation, addressing malnutrition and women empowerment. The organisation,
by means of its programme of providing filling, nutritious and hygienic mid-day
meals to poor children in schools, works towards achieving two of the most
critical Millennium Development Goals: Elimination
of Hunger & Universalization of Primary Education. Built on a
public-private partnership, Akshaya Patra combines government support, private
funds, good management, innovative technology, smart engineering and efficient
day-to-day operations to deliver its objective with quality, transparency and
accountability. Over the years, Akshaya Patra has been the recipient of several
awards and recognitions for its exemplary service and style of functioning. Being
fast recognised across the globe as one of the most honest, efficient and
effective NGOs, the foundation aims to reach out to 5 million children by 2020.
At a time when
our country is beset with so many NGOs indulging in corruption and
mismanagement of funds, men and resources, honest and efficient NGOs such as
Akshaya Patra stand as brilliant silver linings on the cloud. In this context,
it needs to be remembered that even this Mid-Day Meal Scheme of our Government
which feeds our poor children was hijacked and put to shame at times by the
crookedness of some self-serving NGOs. In
an Impact Assessment Study Report,
the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS)
makes a recommendation as follows: “In order to expand the scope of the
programme to more children and to demystify wrong beliefs and apprehensions
about the Mid-Day Meal Programme among parents and students, provisioning of
necessary support for sensitisation and awareness activities on nutrition, and
the process followed by Akshaya Patra
is recommended among all key stakeholders such as school management, teaching /
non-teaching staff, the students and parents.”
