Gandhi Peace Prize awardee serving cooked meals

In this hour of need apart from medical teams, those who are reaching out to the needy masses to eradicate their hunger in any way possible are also playing an indispensable role in this fight against the pandemic. Non-for-profit organization Akshaya Patra working since 2000 to fight hunger and illiteracy in India, is currently working in coordination with Local government to the national government to serve cooked meals and distribute grocery kits to low-income and marginalized population of the society. They started COVID-19 Food Relief Service on 25 March this year soon after the lock-down was announced on 24 March.

As on 7th May 2020 from their official site, The Akshaya Patra Foundation has served 1,58,98,062 cooked meals and distributed 5,30,931 dry grocery kits across various regions of India including Rajasthan , Karnataka , Telangana , Gujarat , Maharashtra , NCR , Uttar-Pradesh , Andhra-Pradesh , Tamil Nadu.

The organization has grown from feeding 1,500 children at five schools in 2000 to feeding over 1.8 million at 16,856 schools. It was awarded the prestigious Gandhi Peace Prize in 2016 for its contribution towards the social-economic development of India by providing mid-day meals to millions of children across the country. The foundation was also awarded the ICAI Gold Shield Award for ‘Excellence in Financial Reporting’ five years in a row since the financial year 2008-09.

By- Mayank Gupta ...