Akshaya Patra- www.jaipurbest.com

Akshaya Patra completes one year in Jaipur

The Akshaya Patra facility in Rajasthan completed one year of its operations in December 2005. This function was graced by the Honourable Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Smt. Vasundara Raje, Honourable Minister of Education, Shri Ghanshyam Tiwari, and others. Mr. Mohandas Pai, Trustee of The Akshaya Patra Foundation and Chief Financial Officer & Board Member Infosys Technologies Ltd., Bangalore was also present during the occasion. Akshaya Patra currently provides 3,05,340 hygienic and nutritious meals to underprivileged children everyday in India.

Speaking on the occasion, the Vice Chairmain of the Akshaya Patra Foundation, Shri Chanchalapathi Dasa was happy to announce that as of December 2005 they were providing midday meals every day to 51,168 children in 287 schools of Jaipur. He said that on the request of the Chief Minister they had demonstrated a model of the mid-day meal program for rural areas.Presently the Foundation is serving 8310 children in 56 villages of Baran district. About 240 women are employed under this program.

The Chief Minister inaugurated the mechanized kitchen. The kitchen has three mechanized roti making machines and each of these can make 2000 rotis per hour. It has two industrial steam boilers, each of which can produce 600 kg of steam per hour. The steam produced will be fed to three Dhal Cookers of 2000 litres capacity, each of which can prepare dhal for 5000 children in 2 hours. The steam will then be fed to four Rice Cookers of 80 kg capacity, each of which can cook rice for 800 students in 20 minutes.

These Rice and Dhal Cookers were custom made according to Akshaya Patra's specifications. In addition there is a vegetable cutting machine (700 kg per hour), atta kneading machine and diesel generators as part of the kitchen infrastructure. There are ten custom built vehicles to transport food to the schools from the kitchen facility here. The Foundation has invested Rs.76 lakhs to set up this kitchen facility and an additional Rs.55 lakhs for the vehicles to transport the food. This perhaps is the biggest kitchen facility in Rajasthan dedicated entirely to the service of underprivileged children.

In partnership with Johari Dalam Sohanlal Charitable Baid Trust, Mumbai, scholarships were distributed to deserving students of class 11 by the Chief Minister and the Education Minister. One hundred students from 16 Government schools received Rs.2000 each in order to encourage them to continue with further studies. The scholarships were sponsored by Shri Chandanmal Baid, Chairman of the Mumbai-based trust.

Address: The Akshaya Patra Foundation
ESTI Hostel Building, Behind OTS, Jhalana Institute Area,
Jhalana Doongri, Jaipur 302 004. Rajasthan.
Phone : 0141-2707947