It all started with the kitchens feeding 1,500 children in 2000. Now, they feed 9,73,147 children across the country every day. The giant kitchens of the Akshaya Patra program cook 1,00,000 meals in less than five hours every day!

The Akshay Patra program, which recently got an entry into the Limca Book of Records, owes a lot to its hi-tech and hygienic kitchens. Bangalore has two of these modern, clean and automated kitchens.

Foundation representative Rajni R explains how the kitchen works: "We run conveyor belts on which boxes are placed. The cooked food is dispensed through taps into the box and then packed by workers with minimal human contact. The utensils are all sterilized and the food is machine-cooked. All the workers wear caps, gloves and boots, which are also sterilized after every use."

"The workers start cooking at 2 am and get the food ready by 7.30 am to dispatch it. The first vehicle leaves the temple premises at 7.30 with a three-item menu -- rice, sambhar with vegetables and curd with ingredients added so that the children's nutrition requirements are met. A nutrition expert's advice is also taken," she adds.

Around 150 workers in the Rajajinagar kitchen cook, clean and distribute food. The food, when packed in steel utensils, is at 90 degrees centigrade and served at 60 degrees.

"The kitchens of Akshaya Patra can cook around 1,00,000 meals in less than five hours. The extensive mechanization of the kitchens offer children standardized, quality and hygienic meals," says Rajni, adding that the cooked food is distributed to schools through heat-insulated, dust-free, custom-built vehicles. The first kitchen was set up in Bangalore in 2000 at Rajajinagar and six years later at Kanakapura and started giving food to nearby government schools. Those schools witnessed tremendous response as principals acknowledged that student enrollment increased. Seeing this success, the program was extended to schools in other areas of Bangalore, Hubli-Dharwad, Bellary, Mangalore and Mysore in Karnataka.

Mid-day meals are also provided for children of Jaipur, Nathwara and Baran in Rajasthan, Vrindavan and Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, Puri and Nayagarh in Orissa, Gandhinagar and Ahemedabad in Gujarat, and Hyderabad and Visakapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

"The vision is to ensure that no child in India is deprived of education because of hunger. We want to end hunger and create a human resources pool that will propel India into league of developed nations."

Facilitating the education needs of children, the foundation provides unlimited mid-day meals in schools in partnership with the Centre and state governments. Currently, the programme feeds children in over 5,700 government, government aided schools and anganwadis in 16 locations across India daily.

GRAND PLAN

According to a UNESCO report, around 13.5 million children in the age group of 6-13 years are out of school in India. Despite India's stunning economic growth, a large chunk of India's children does not have access to schools because of poverty and malnutrition. The Foundation is working overtime to eliminate this problem.

In Karnataka every day

City -- Number of children

* Bangalore -- 2,05,000
* Hubli-Dharwad -- 1,82,000
* Bellary -- 1,14,600
* Mysore -- 8,700
* Mangalore -- 14,289
* Total -- 5,24,589

ON THE MENU

* Rice, sambhar with vegetables, curd and sweet once a week in southern states including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa
* Roti, vegetable, pulao and kheer once a week in northern States including Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat

MEAL IMPACT

* Increased attendance and enrollment in schools
* Improved health of those children
* Enhanced learning abilities
* Reduced drop-out rates

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