ISKCON kitchen to provide mid-day meal to govt schools

Charu Chhibber

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 8

Students of city’s government school will get mid-day meal from the Akshaya Patra Foundation of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) from the new academic session starting in April.

Confirming the same, Rubinderjit Singh Brar, Director, School Education, UT, said: “A team from the Education Department has already visited Gurgaon and Gujarat to study the model of the ISKCON’s Akshay Patra kitchen and understand its working. We are now waiting for a team from ISKCON to visit us so that we can chalk out a plan for providing mid-day meal to government school students in Chandigarh from the new academic session.”

He said getting mid-day meal from the Akshaya Patra kitchen was a step towards ensuring hygienic and nutritious food for students as several complaints were pouring in about the quality of food being provided by CITCO presently. “We will stop procuring mid-day meal from CITCO in the new academic session,” he said.

As for the menu, Brar said: “A decision in this regard will be taken only after a meeting with the ISKCON officials which is likely to be held in the city next month. But he conceded that since the ISKCON kitchens serve ‘satvik’ food i.e. food without onion and garlic, the same food is expected to be served to city students.”

Notably, in March last year, local MP Kirron Kher had recommended that the UT Education Department should get mid-day meal for government school students from the Akshaya Patra kitchen of ISKCON Temple in Sector 36.

Significantly, there are nearly 1, 00,000 students studying in classes I to VII of 115 government schools of the city. While seven schools provide mid-day meal to their students, others get it from CITCO and the Chandigarh Institute of Hotel Management.

The Foundation

The Akshaya Patra Foundation (APF), not-for-profit organisation, provides mid-day meals in government schools. It was started by the ISKCON with the aim of eliminating hunger. The APF works in partnership with the Union and various state governments to provide mid-day meal to children in government and government-aided schools. The vision statement of the Akshaya Patra-"No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger." The foundation is currently feeding 1.5 million children daily at 24 locations across 10 states and runs the world's largest NGO-run mid-day meal programme. One meal cooked in a centralised kitchen costs around Rs7.50-8.00, excluding infrastructure costs. The mission is to reach 5 million children by 2020.