The Akshaya Patra Foundation has created the following infrastructure in Bangalore with the funds raised from public donations. Kitchen facility with stainless steel cauldrons, steam boilers, exhaust system, conveyor belts and stainless steel containers to carry food to children. Custom-built vehicles to transport the cooked food to the schools.
Operations Logistics & Safety Measures
The food is cooked in a kitchen facility located in Bangalore city that was designed and engineered from scratch by the Akshaya Patra management to optimize quality and minimize cost. The facility consists of a series of mechanized steam-heated cauldrons custom-built to cook the nutrient, staple and native foods most appreciated by children on a long-term basis. Mechanization has minimized human handling of food to ensure high standards of hygiene and cleanliness. Steam heating has accelerated cooking to prepare the meal in about six hours.
The food is packed into stainless steel containers and loaded into custom-built vehicles. The program currently employs 22 vehicles to transport meals to 1,20,000 children in and around Bangalore city. A security personnel escorts each vehicle to ensure safe delivery of meals to the schools. The vehicles drop off the meals in the schools (about 10 to 15 schools per vehicle) and on its return trip picks up the empty containers.
The Akshaya Patra Mid-day Meal Program is professionally managed to provide a hygienic, nutrient and sumptuous cooked full meal.
* Sambar: A south Indian native soup with lentils, vegetables and pulses.
Use of Technology
Another significant feature of the Akshaya Patra program is the use of technology in the social sector to maximize efficiency and minimize cost, time and labor. Appropriate technological consideration has governed all phases of the design and process: the choice of the cooking medium (steam), generation of steam, construction of large cauldrons, an automated vegetable cutting machine to cut large quantities of vegetables, thereby minimizing the human intervention in handling of cooked food to maintain high standards of cleanliness and hygiene, custom design of vehicles, logistics to safely deliver cooked food on time, etc.