The Blue Bus …the only one of its kind vehicle with which people identifies The Akshaya Patra Foundation. The Blue bus travels to 7,110 schools and helps us reach out to 11, 98,206 children across India with the hot, nutritious and tasty food inside. It is the bus of hope for the million of hungry children who are even denied of their basic needs otherwise.

The Bus is an integral part of the success story of Akshaya Patra school meal program today. The vehicle is heat insulated to ensure that the food remains hot when it is delivered to the schools. Each vehicle can cater to about 3,000 to 5,000 children. Cooked food is packed into stainless steel containers and loaded into these custom- built vehicles, which have racks to store the containers in an orderly manner.

Using a fleet of vehicles, food is transported to the schools within a 50 km radius of the kitchen. Security personnel escort each vehicle to ensure safe delivery of meals to the schools. The vehicles drop off the meals in the schools (about 20 to 25 schools per vehicle) and on their return trip pick up empty containers. The mapping of the schools to the vehicles has also been done efficiently so that food is delivered on time, six days of the week, without fail. The Blue Bus takes equal care in serving the food as our mother does at home.

We dream of the day when this Blue Bus reaches each and every hungry child in every corner of our country.

“I came across this non profit organization around a year back during our regular visits to Vrindavan. We saw this beautiful temple complex before entering the main city of Vrindavan. We visited here to have darshans. It is a large complex which is maintained very well and has one of the most beautiful deities of Radha Krishna.

After we had darshans, we were taken for a kitchen tour by Shri Vishnubhakt ji, who is a young MBA and has devoted himself. Akshay Patra is run by ISKCON, Bangalore. Mr. Madhu Pandit Dass is the chairman of this organization. Akshay Patra is providing the food to poor children as mid day meal scheme. This activity is being run in various states and has helped in getting back the school drop outs.

We saw the automated German plant for cooking food on large scale. First you come across the kneading machine, which prepares the dough for chapattis. There is no touching of hand during cooking process, so a very high level of hygiene is maintained throughout the process.

After the dough is made, chunk goes to rolling pin for pressing to make it flat evenly. After that it is cut in circular shape and left over goes back to dough bin. Now these chappatis pass over the flames for cooking and is turned automatically to cook other side. A good even shape freshly cooked chapattis are collected in steel drums.

On the other elevated platform, Dal, Subzi, Kicchadi, Rice or Kheer is cooked in large vessels by steam process. These are nicely collected in steel drums with lids and are transferred to vans, jeeps or buses depending upon quantity and destination.

Entire Mathura district is covered from this kitchen, providing meals to number of schools. Kitchen starts in night at around 12 am and if you are staying there can see the early morning movements of vehicles carrying food to far off schools.

The Foundation has one of the best kitchens infrastructures in the world to ensure quality and cost reduction. It has been implementing science and technology to the highest possible extent to improve its operations,

The menu that served to the children is indeed based on scientific research of nutritional experts. It is prescribed by the experts after rigorous research regarding the best nutritional combination for a child’s overall development.

The highly sophisticated kitchens are one of its kind, which are capable of cooking up to 2, 50,000 meals at a time. This ensures high level of cost reduction as well as maintains the quality and hygiene of the food. The centralized kitchens cook more than a lakh meal in less than 5 hours with least human intervention and high quality.

The distribution is one of the best. The food is transferred to thousands of schools in a systematic and well planned manner. The vehicles carrying the food are custom build vehicles build by advanced technology to retain the heat in the food. The distribution system of Akshaya Patra is indeed a science which has been a matter of study for various premier management institutions.

The organization maintains accounts electronically and also maintains websites to educate and inform the people about its mission. It has a strong IT team as well which ensures that the Foundation is always well connected to its well wishers.

Akshay Patra, Vrindavan is headed by Narsimha Prabhu an engineering graduate and very knowledgeable gentleman. It is an experience to attend his Bhagvad Gita lecture on Sunday morning.

Akshay Patra has its own guest house, where any one can go and stay on paid basis. The guest house has family suite, A/c rooms, Air-cool rooms and dormitory facility. It has its own restaurant in temple complex.

One can contribute by donations or by sponsoring the children. The donors are given the benefits of staying at their guest houses for fixed number of days every year till the membership expiry. Once in year a special puja is also done in member’s name.

On subsequent visits to this place, we became attached and now if our visit gap becomes 2 month or more, we feel uncomfortable and feel that we are missing something in life. Its an experience to visit this place.”

Article by: Mr.Alok K

Source: http://www.mouthshut.com/diary/ehjcupmum/AKSHAY-PATRA\