The Akshaya Patra Foundation

The Akshaya Patra Foundation is dedicated to ensuring that no child in India is deprived of education due to hunger. With a mission to feed 3 million children every school day by 2025, the NGO serves students from government and government-aided schools across India. Providing hot, nutritious mid-day meals as an incentive for school attendance aims to combat classroom hunger, promote education, and nurture confident citizens, thereby making a significant investment in child development and human progress.

Major Interventions:

Feeding Programs:

Akshaya Patra partners with the Government of India, state governments, and UT administrations to implement the PM POSHAN initiative (formerly the Mid-Day Meal Scheme). It provides nutritious meals to children aiming to eliminate classroom hunger and support the Right to Education for children from socio-economically challenging backgrounds. By delivering quality mid-day meals, it seeks to address malnutrition and encourage school attendance, thereby helping children grow into healthy, educated, and confident individuals.

The NGO collaborates closely with government bodies like the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and the Food and Civil Supplies Corporations to secure timely food grain supplies. In addition to PM POSHAN, Akshaya Patra runs programs such as the ICDS Anganwadi Feeding Programme for pregnant women, nursing mothers, and young children and breakfast initiatives to address short-term hunger in schools. It uses its kitchen infrastructure for food relief during emergencies, exemplified by its nationwide efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Non-Feeding Programs:

The National Endeavour for Student Transformation (NEST) includes the Digital Education Programme, which bridges the digital divide by providing quality modern education on tablets to economically disadvantaged students, and the Avsar Scholarship Programme, which supports bright students facing financial challenges in pursuing higher education. Another component, the School Rejuvenation Programme, enhances learning environments by improving infrastructure and academic resources in line with the Government's Model School initiative. Abhay initiative further boosts academic performance through activity-based remedial classes and extracurricular learning. Launched in response to post-pandemic educational challenges, the digital program offers access to competitive exam materials and social-emotional learning.

The sustainability strategy focuses on implementing measures that minimize environmental impact while enhancing its meal programs. Biogas systems for efficient organic waste management and solar power plants are being installed in its kitchens. It has transitioned to biomass briquettes for energy, conserving non-renewable resources, and has established a water conservation roadmap to optimize usage in meal preparation.