Hare Krishna Movement and Akshaya Patra Foundation’s modern kitchen at Kokapet in Ranga Reddy district is now catering to 50,000 beneficiaries every day — a 10-time leap since it started operations two years ago by reaching out to 5,000 persons as part of supply food for programs like Annapoorna (₹5 meal), Bhojanamrita, Saddimoota, Akshaya Alpahar and Nitya Annadanam.
“We have fed hot, hygienic and nutritious meals cumulatively to 1.5 crore beneficiaries since our new kitchen opened with the sole vision of our spiritual master Srila Prabhupada that ‘nobody should go hungry within 10-mile radius of our centre,” Satya Gaura Chandra Dasa, president, HKM & APF, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, said on Monday.
Addressing a gathering to celebrate their second anniversary, he said the kitchen uses latest technologies to cook food within 15 minutes for 1,000 people while sambar for 5,000 servings gets ready in two hours flat.
Kitchen waste is also being used to make bio-gas while water used for cooking is treated in a reverse osmosis plant. There is a boiler plan and gas bank along with an effluent treatment plant for effective waste treatment.
Different menu has been designed for each day to maintain freshness of the food, he said. Akshaya Patra has been providing 1.5 lakh meals to government school children in Telangana every day, and further in tie-up with GHMC and GWMC, Annapoorna ₹5 meal program catering to 50,000 beneficiaries daily across Hyderabad and Warangal.
Another 5,000 meals are being provided under the Bhojanamrita programme to patient attendants in government and other hospitals, in addition to 3,000 meals to farmers and workers at the four designated agriculture market yards under the ‘Saddimoota’ programme.
Mr. Dasa thanked Nityananda Reddy, vice chairman of Aurobindo Pharma, and P. Sarat Chandra Reddy, Ram Kumar Goyal, President of Sri Krishna Goseva Mandal, Venu Gopal Innani, Shyam Gupta, Suresh Kumar Agarwal – Trustees of Sri Krishna Goseva Mandal; P.P. Reddy, chairman, Krishna Reddy, MD, Ravi Reddy of the Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd for generous contributions towards the programmes.
Mayor B. Ram Mohan, Additional Commissioner Ravi Kiran attended as guests.
