Akshaya Patra Foundation

About the organisation

The Akshaya Patra Foundation is an NGO in India headquartered in Bengaluru. It strives to eliminate classroom hunger by implementing the Mid-Day Meal Scheme in the government schools and government-aided schools. Alongside, Akshaya Patra also aims at countering malnutrition and supporting the right to education of socio-economically disadvantaged children.

Since 2000, Akshaya Patra has been concerting all its efforts towards providing fresh and nutritious meals to children on every single school day. It is continuously leveraging technology to multiply our reach. The state-of-the-art kitchens have become a subject of study and have attracted curious visitors from around the world.

It has partnered with the Government of India and various State Governments, along with the persistent support from corporates, individual donors, and well-wishers have helped us to grow from serving just 1,500 children in 5 schools in 2000 to serving 1.8 million children.

Today, Akshaya Patra is the world’s largest (not-for-profit run) Mid-Day Meal Programme serving wholesome food every school day to over 1.8 million children from 19,039 schools across 12 states & 2 Union territories of India.

Special features

Along with its core cause of providing mid-day meals to children of government schools and government-aided schools, the Akshaya Patra Foundation has also undertaken Anganwadi feeding as one of its feeding initiatives. Currently, the Foundation serves nutritious meals to 1,35,612 young children between the ages of 3-6 years at 5,928 Anganwadi centres in ten locations of four states of India. It also provides nutritious food to more than 3,660 pregnant and lactating mothers across 323 centres in Jaipur. By doing so, Akshaya Patra wants to ensure access to right nutrition in sufficient quantity during the crucial stages of children, expecting and lactating mothers.

Why partner with them

Akshaya Patra reaches out to 18,00,907 children in 52 kitchens across 12 States & 2 Union Territories of India, providing them with freshly cooked meal on all school days. Currently, it implements the mid-day meal programme in 19,039 schools of the country, with plans to increase that number to hundreds more.