Visit to Akshaya Patra. Amingaon

The beautiful story from the Mahabharat, in which Lord Surya gives the Pandavas the Akshaya Patra a divine bowl which gave an inexhaustible supply of food ,is wonderfully realised in the feeding of lakhs of needy schoolchildren by the NGO Akshaye Patra , run by the Iskcon movement , in collaboration with state governments ,all over India.

FLO NE was given an unique opportunity to observe the process where 4,000kgs of rice, 3,000 kgs dal , 2500kgs of vegetables are cooked everyday in a clean and hygienic Central Kitchen in Amingoan, North Guwahati, and then despatched to 600 schools to feed 53,000 children, all before 8am every working day. This is repeated in 20 centres around the country to feed 16 lakh needy children a nutritious mid-day meal, after Atal Behari Vajpayee announced the Mid Day Meal programme in 2000.

The main aim of this programme is to provide education to the underprivileged children , by attracting them to attend school with tasty, healthy food, and thus preventing them from becoming school dropouts. Since the start of this programme in 2000, many students have been able to graduate, even from engineering colleges , attributing this to the fact that they remained in school because of the mid day meal, which their own parents could not provide.