Akshaya Patra aims to serve mid-day meals to 5 million children by 2025

As it entered its third decade of service, the Akshaya Patra Foundation has said it aims to serve mid-day meals to five million children by 2025. On November 11, 2000, twenty years ago, the Foundations first kitchen was inaugurated by the then Minister of Human Resource Development, Murli Manohar Joshi, and Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna.

Today, Akshaya Patra is commemorating two decades of making a positive impact on the lives of children by providing them with wholesome mid-day meals.

As the implementing partner of the Government of India's flagship school feeding programme, the Mid-Day Meal Scheme, Akshaya Patra serves over 1.8 million children in 19,039 Government and Government-aided schools across 12 States and two Union Territories, the Foundation said in a statement.

The Foundation said it has cumulatively served over 3.3 billion mid-day meals to children since its inception in 2000.

With the schools closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Foundation is currently undertaking food assistance to aid the Governments efforts to provide relief to vulnerable communities.

It is working with the Government to provide food relief to vulnerable communities in 18 states and two UTs with the proactive support of its donors.

Over 100 million meals have been served since March 2020 in the form of freshly cooked food and food relief kits with essential groceries.

Akshaya Patra said its mission is to reach five million children by 2025.

"The organisation will strive to enhance its initiatives with solutions focusing on food and nutrition security for children and implement innovative solutions to supplement welfare programmes to contribute to their health and well-being," the statement added.