The gift that keeps on giving

The mid-day meal scheme pioneered by Akshaya Patra Foundation will, by 2020, feed 5 million school kids in India clean and nutritious food, and could eliminate student hunger by 2030

If I had to identify an Infosys among Non Governmental Organisations in the coun try, my choice would be spontaneous. Aksh aya Patra, the hugely successful mid-day meal provider in India.

Akshaya Patra was launched in June 2000 with the objective to provide mid-day meals to 1,500 students in and around Bangalore. The service has extended to more than 1.4 million students every single day across 10,661 schools and 22 locations today, making it the largest (not-forprofit) mid-day meal programme in the world.

In a world where NGOs generally grow in nominal single-digits and are perpetually low on resource mobilisation, Akshaya Patra has demonstrated two convention breakers: That is possible to grow at a `corporate' pace and that it is possible to mobilise the kind of resources that even most listed corporations do not report in their bottomlines across years of existence.

The big question that most NGOs across the country are asking is: How?

Whereas most NGOs focus on education proper, Akshaya Patra selected to focus on a relatively under-explored aspect (nutrition) that concurrently addresses education, poverty, nutrition and social progress.

Whereas most mid-day meal providers would have confined themselves to food, the bunch of mavericks managing Akshaya Patra recognised that the issue was not just about providing a meal; it was about creating student pull that would translate into academic and physiological improvements. The result is that over the years, the Akshaya Patra effect has translated into increased attendance from 73.3 per cent in 2005 (girl students) to 87 per cent, emerging as possibly the most potent attendance-driver (and hence, of national progress) across the country.

Most NGOs working around a similar idea would have been content to showcase a successful model and wait for the world to make a sheepish journey to its door. Instead, Akshaya Patra went to various state governments with the request of an opportunity to make a difference. The result is that Akshaya Patra is now present in 10 states leveraging a public-private partnership model.

Most NGOs would have worked out various makeshift arrangements with existing kitchens in the regions of their presence. Akshaya Patra invested in state-of-the-art stainless steel (304 food grade) kitchens and Six Sigma discipline that promises hygiene (non-touch), speed and scale.The result: An Akshaya Patra kitchen is geared to roll out 7,200 meals in just 20 minutes.

Most small NGOs would have focused on getting their operational dynamics right. Akshaya Patra focused on credibility, credibility and credibility, engaging confidence-enhancing auditors, attracting prominent citizens of integrity to its governing board and treating governance with the same discipline as a publicly-listed organisation. Result: Akshaya Patra recently attracted Rs 200 crore in funding from the philanthropic arms of Infosys and the Tata Group, possibly the largest ever corporate allocation made to a third party NGO in India.

Most NGOs would have either become too engaged with the nitty-gritty or growth implications to invest seriously in processes. Akshaya Patra invested in a quality control process that ensures raw materials are accepted only after comprehensive quality inspection at all locations aligned with the demanding requirements of the Food Safety Standards Act 2006, proactive investment in cold storage, compliance with First In First Out and First Expiry First Out discipline, standardised processes irrespective of locations, employment of trained cooks and production supervisors, ongoing process monitoring comprising critical control points like cooking temperature, logistic charting for route optimisation and investment in Global Positioning System equipment to track delivery vehicles.

One might assume that Akshaya Patra started and ended with food. Appraise the overall impact: Scholastic performance improved; there was a decline in the incidence of under-weight students by 200 basis points on an enlarging base.

Akshaya Patra intends to widen its coverage across the national landscape and feed 5 million students by 2020. This effectively means that what the NGO has achieved in 15 years is likely to be trebled in a third of the time.

With a number of corporations now funding this programme, it would be reasonable to assume that Akshaya Patra is an NGO assured of financial robustness for perpetuity. Here comes a surprise: The founders indicate that the combination of government support and Akshaya Patra's direct intervention is expected to eliminate the incidence of student hunger by 2030. If this combined action does not succeed in eliminating the problem in the coming decade-and-a-half, then it would be better to vacate its space and cease operations.

This is how the impact is panning out. Varshitha (9) of Inole village (off Hyderabad) attends school hungry since her mother (domestic help) leaves early for work and has no father. If there is anything that sustains Varshitha it is Akshaya Patra's mid-day meal, a part of which is packed to be taken home for dinner.

And to think that this grand idea was sparked off by a single incident: That of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of International Society for Krishna Consciousness, seeing a group of children fighting with street dogs over scraps of food at Mayapur near Kolkata one morning, inspiring a vision that no child within 10 km would ever go hungry.