CASE STUDY ANALYSIS:

AKSHAY PATRA, FEEDING INDIA’S SCHOOL CHILDREN

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 INDIA OVERVIEW
 Bordering the Arabian Sea & the Bay of Bengal,
India has a land mass of 3.2 million square
kilometre
 1/3rd the size of USA
 Population of about 1.1 billion, over 3 times as
many as USA
 Recent annual GDP growth of about 6.5%
helped the country reduce by half the proportion
of people living on a less dollar a day
 80% of the Indian population lived in rural areas
& poverty was concentrated largely in the
regions which was often challenging to serve
 According to United Nations , there remained
many social needs to address especially related
to – health, primary education & gender equality
 Adult literacy rate is 61%, gender disparity
literacy was prevalent with male literacy rates at
around 73% & female rates at 47%
 India has world largest concentration of poor
people – approx. more than 300 million
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GLIMPSES

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MAINTAINING COST
EFFICIENCES
COST OF FOOD: Rs. 6/-
CENTRALIZED KITCHEN
 Overhead included: raw
material, labour, distribution
& administration
COST OF FOOD: Rs. 10/-
DE CENTRALIZED KITCHEN
 Increased transportation cost
 Lack of road infrastructure
 Dispersed location of food
SITE SELECTION
Schools were selected based on demonstrated need & physical
location
CENTRALIZED KITCHEN (URBAN AREAS)
Schools were close to each other
 Improved transportation times when delivering food
 Allowed more efficient delivery of meals
DE CENTRALIZED KITCHEN (RURAL AREAS)
Schools were not close to each other
 Distance & location was a problem prohibited
delivery from central location
 No factors for selection in the rural areas
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CONSTANT LEARNING & IMPROVEMENT
 Early development occurred largely through trial & error method
 At initial stage the menu was standardized , later on much
experimentation went into recipe creation
DISTRIBUTORS RESPONSIBILITIES
 Handling school complaints – time of delivery, insufficient quantity of food,
taste of food, quality of rice
 Provided feedback from schools & helped to implement the necessary
changes
WORKERS RESPONSIBILITIES
 Workers initiatives led to the improvement in kitchen design & operations

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DUAL PROLONGED STRATEGY CENTRALIZED MODEL :
OPERATIONS IN BANGALORE
 Designed by team of expert engineers
 Initially intended to feed 1500 students, by 2007 was
feeding 145000 children
 Bangalore was an evolved kitchen
 Changes was made as on need basis
 Repeatedly stressed on : importance of process, design &
high quality of food
 Believed that an organization should have replicable,
hygienic kitchen, that would be productive & process
oriented

CENTRALIZED KITCHEN IN BANGALORE (URBAN AREA)

DE-CENTRALIZED KITCHEN IN BANGALORE (RURAL AREA)

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SUPPLY CHAIN & OPERATIONS
 Daily meal included rice, lentils, vegetables, spices & curd
 In urban areas: vegetables were procured from the local market through an
ongoing relationship with a 3rd party vendor
 Nutritional values was always a prime concern
 Menus varied whatever was plentiful in the market
 Bangalore storage room was able to store up to 3 days worth of fresh food
& substantially more dry goods like rice & lentils

CHALLENGES WITH THE SUPPLY CHAIN

Received rice as a subsidy from the central government, which was for poor
people

Rice from Food Corporation of India(FCI) was sold by farmers to the FCI
through middleman. Since price was set by weight, the middlemen often added
foreign materials to increase tonnage.

Akshay Patra thoroughly cleaned the rice by using the destoning machine.

Was found that 20% of each bag of rice was unusable

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INCORPORATION OF AUTOMATION DECENTRALISED OPERATIONS
 Little infrastructure of any
Akshaya Patra utilized automation & mechanization as much as
kind which includes
possible which increased the efficiency of the kitchen production
electricity, water & roads as
well
 Akshaya Patra decided to
work with least developed
tribe in Baran
 Decentralized operations
 Created kitchens near the
schools
 By 2007:Decentralized
kitchen in Baran served 79
villages serving 15,000
children per day

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 HUMAN RESOURCE ISSUES IN BARAN DISTRICT
(DECENTRALIZED KITCHEN)
 Self help group of 4-6 village women were formed who were  Every village had one head cook (on rotational basis) who
employed as cooks for the mid day meal responsibilities were purchasing vegetables, firewood &
 Due no education or experience they went through basic training- supervising the daily operations
 The head cook earned Rs. 50/- for 3hrs per day while the others
cooking , nutrition & hygiene
 Other training as well- maintaining accounts, inventory, requisition earned Rs. 1000/- per month (In contrast rest of the people
slips & also counting earned Rs. 8/- day even after working for long hours)
 Even taken to the nearest Akshaya Patra kitchen to get the hands-on
experience

CENTRAL OFFICE IN BARAN:

 Responsible for bimonthly procurement of
non perishable items, distribution of the key
items & the overall all the village operations

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OVERCOMING CHALLENGES
CHALLENGES RELATED TO HYGIENE
 Akshaya Patra faced many challenges especially related to hygiene.
 Due to inadequate water supplies villagers would bath after every 6-7 days
 Initially the cooks (women) in the Akshaya Patra kitchen failed to understand the
importance of hygiene

SOLUTION
Constructed a more relevant communication by pointing out that the first bite of
food should be blessed & offered to god everyday

OTHER CHALLENGES
 Akshaya Patra faced difficulties in transportation of goods
E.g. When it rained delivery trucks got stuck in the mud 7 sometimes it got stuck up
to 3 days

 Lack of electricity & refrigerator, spoilage of vegetables was a big problem

SOLUTION
They educated the women to buy vegetables of higher shelf life

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EXTENTION OF SERVICES
 Distribution of medical services
PROBLEM: Doctors found 85% children feeding in Akshaya Patra suffered from worm
infestations due to unhygienic conditions. Also deficient in vitamins
SOLUTION: In 2002, began medical intervention program which included deworming
medicines & micronutrient capsules . Collaborated with the Divikar Service Trust,
Bangalore & Durlabji Hospital in Jaipur .Also collaborated with the dental hospitals & eye
care hospitals for the dental care & for the eye related issues respectively

 Inclusion of infants & expectant/ nursing mothers

PROBLEM: Akshaya Patra released realised that children of all age groups required
nutritional meals
SOLUTION: Began to serve infants as well as expectant & nursing mothers in centres near
the schools

 Feeding adult labours

PROBLEM: In Jaipur many low skilled migrant workers worked for a week, slept on the
streets & returned home on weekend to give their family the wages earned . Paid Rs. 30/-
for a small meal out of Rs. 150/- earned per day .
SOLUTION: In 2005, began extension service to provide to the rikshaw drivers & other
low skilled labours. For Rs. 5/- the workers recived unlimited meal in the evening

 Leveraging corporations & other NGOs

SOLUTION: Worked with other NGOs & potential corporate sponsors to leverage
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operations to train them in starting/expanding the midday meal
MEASURING SUCCESS MEASURING SUCCESS
 NUMBER OF CHILDREN FED  AIM: Reach 1 million children daily by 2010
After 6 years of establishment as of 31 st December 2006, Akshaya
Patra fed 5,22,000 underprivilege children in 2000 schools  CHALLENGE: Human Capital posed particular challenge

 HEALTH & SCHOOL PERFORMANCE In 2006, kitchen management in all 8 locations was overseen by
 Impact study was conducted by M.S.Ramaiah medical college religious volunteers, which means 2% of the Akshaya Patra expense
revealed that no. of children below the optimal nutritional level were from operations, administration & marketing compared to 20%
was reduced by 60% to almost 0%. in other NGOs
 .Anaemia was reduced from 40% to less than 5%.
 .Skin infections was reduced from 80% to 0%.
 After the Akshaya Patra program initiation in Baran children
gained ½ kilo of weight per month.
 In a study conducted by the Department of Education, Government
of Karnataka , it was observed that 99.6% students felt that they
pay better attention & 93.8% of teachers reported overall academic
improvement. However question
limitations on the
dependency on
volunteers

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OPERATIONAL MODEL

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