In the year 2000, Sri Madhu Pandit Dasa established the Akshaya Patra Foundation in pursuance of the vision of Srila Prabhupada – ‘No one should go hungry’. As the Founder-Chairman of The Akshaya Patra Foundation, he has worked tirelessly towards alleviating classroom hunger and increasing the nutrition levels of children all over the country.

He has operationalised an extensive network of state-of-the-art mass-feeding kitchens that can cook up to 1,00,000 meals a day. All these facilities adhere to world-class food manufacturing and safety management systems to ensure safe handling, preparation and delivery. Their robust engineering practices and technological innovations have played a crucial role in efficiently scaling up the programme in various terrains and geographies.

Madhu Pandit Dasa has ably led the Akshaya Patra movement to become a globally admired public-private partnership in the Social sector. He has personally directed the organisation to undertake massive food assistance initiatives during emergencies in India and abroad. These pioneering efforts have set new benchmarks globally and have become a case study in prestigious institutions such as the Harvard Business School.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation feeds over 2 million children in 65 locations across 14 states and 2 Union Territories of India every school day. The Foundation has cumulatively served 3.5 billion meals since its inception and over 25 crore meals during the pandemic in India. In Jaipur, Ajmer and Hyderabad, Akshaya Patra and its supporting organisations have aided the Government’s subsidised food programmes for people from low-income groups, such as daily wagers and factory workers. Akshaya Patra is currently operating in 42 locations across 12 states of India and is conferred as the World’s Largest NGO-run Mid-Day Meal Program.

He has also designed one of the World’s largest kitchens for mid-day meals in Hubballi that cooks 126,000 meals every day. This kitchen was also featured in the documentary series ‘Mega Kitchens’ on the National Geographic channel. The Akshaya Patra has also been featured in many other documentaries like ‘The Journey of India’ on the Discovery Channel.

Under his leadership, Akshaya Patra has won numerous awards, including the Gandhi Peace Prize, Nikkei Asia Prize, BBC’s Global Food Champion Award, ICAI Hall of Fame, and Special Jury Award at Outlook Poshan Innovation Awards.

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