The Akshaya Patra Foundation is an independent charitable trust registered under the Indian Trusts Act 1882 (Reg. No. 154). Headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, the NGO serves as the implementing partner of the Government of IndiaâÂÂs flagship PM POSHAN Abhiyaan, a school meal programme designed to improve the nutritional status of school-aged children nationwide. It was earlier known as the âÂÂNational Programme for Mid-Day Meal in SchoolsâÂÂ, popularly known as the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Scheme.
Akshaya Patra is the largest NGO partner of the Government of India to implement the PM POSHAN Abhiyaan in government-run schools in India, a collaboration based on the public-private partnership (PPP) model. It is also one of the largest NGO-run school feeding programmes in the world.
Since its inception, Akshaya Patra has cumulatively served over 4 billion meals.
Akshaya Patra was started in 2000 by feeding 1,500 children in five schools in Bengaluru, Karnataka, with the vision that no child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger. The objective was to address the issue of classroom hunger and support the health and education of the children by providing them with hot, nutritious, and tasty mid-day meals.
When the Government of IndiaâÂÂs flagship programme, the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Scheme (now known as the PM POSHAN Abhiyaan) was launched in 2001, Akshaya Patra collaborated with the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India, and state governments to implement it.
Akshaya Patra strives to address the issue of classroom hunger and support childrenâÂÂs health and education by providing them nutritious mid-day meals every day. The Foundation serves over 2.25 million children through its network of kitchens in 78 locations in 16 states and 3 UTs, thus support their nutrition and education.
In Vadodara and Surat in Gujarat, Ongole in Andhra Pradesh and Warangal in Telangana, Akshaya Patra implements the Anganwadi feeding programme to provide food to children in the age group of 3-6 in Anganwadis and pregnant women and lactating mothers in the area. Over 54,000 children and women benefit from the programme.
In addition to school feeding, Akshaya Patra also runs a programme to feed homeless women living in ashrams in Vrindavan, thus ensuring their continued access to nourishing food and guaranteeing them a life of dignity and respect.
In numerous instances, Akshaya Patra has leveraged its infrastructure and resources to provide humanitarian food relief during emergency situations such as floods, droughts and landslides across the country and beyond the borders. In April 2014, Akshaya Patra collaborated with Tata Trusts and Sipradian Sahayata Sanstha to set up a temporary centralised kitchen and provide food relief to people in the aftermath of the earthquake.
During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Akshaya Patra extended humanitarian food relief through its network of kitchens across the country and served over 244 million meals to people when everyone was finding it difficult to source food due to the containment measures put in place to curb the pandemic outbreak.
Akshaya PatraâÂÂs network of kitchens spans 16 states and 3 UTs: Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Delhi, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
It has established centralised kitchens in 76 locations. The scale and operational efficiency of these kitchens help maximise the programme's impact. Akshaya PatraâÂÂs kitchens have been a subject of study for the Harvard Business School on two occasions: 2007 and 2017.