Akshya Patra to serve Meals to students in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar

Bangalore, July 18 (UNI) Reaching nearer to its goal of feeding one million school children every day, the Bangalore-based Akshaya Patra Foundation has commenced serving school meals to students in Government schools of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar.

The Government of Gujarat and The Akshaya Patra Foundation have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to feed children in the Ahmedabad West (14,600 children), Gandhinagar City (7,000 children) and Gandhinagar Rural(25,000 children).

Launched in mid-June, the Akshaya Patra School Meal programme has already crossed the estimated number of beneficiaries and is now feeding about 51,000 children which is increasing everyday. The enrolled number of students in these schools is about 65,000.

A temporary kitchen facility, on the lines of the Akshaya Patra kitchens of innovatively engineered, centralized and automated kitchens has been set up in Gandhinagar with a fleet of custom-built vehicles which have been delivering the noon meals to the schools.

The kitchen features the first of its kind chapathi-making machine in Gujarat which can role out 12,000 chapathis in one hour.

Vice Chairman of the Foundation Chanchalapati Das said in a release here today that "Akshaya Patra's school meal was a strategic intervention in education which aims at getting children a meal that ensures an education which is the only way to help millions of underprivileged children out of the cycle of poverty and hunger." Akshaya Patra is currently serving over 7,50,000 children in 13 locations and six states of Karnataka, Rajasthan, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.

The foundation aims to reach a figure of one million children by the end of this decade.

UNI