From a Single Kitchen on Hare Krishna Hill to Millions of Meals

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation was founded in July 2000 by Madhu Pandit Dasa, an IIT Bombay trained civil engineer turned monk of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, who serves as the Foundation's Founder and Chairman. Founded by devotees of ISKCON Bangalore, the program began serving mid-day meals to 1,500 children across five government schools in Bengaluru Rural District from a single kitchen on the Hare Krishna Hill campus of ISKCON Bangalore, inspired by ISKCON founder A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada's stated vision that no one within ten miles of a temple should go hungry.

From that single kitchen the Foundation has grown into the world's largest not-for-profit school lunch programme, preparing and delivering hot meals and grocery kits to government school children across India to fight hunger and encourage school attendance, now headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, and registered as an independent charitable trust under the Indian Trusts Act 1882, serving as the implementing partner for India's PM POSHAN school meal programme. That transition from a single ISKCON temple kitchen to a nationwide implementing partner for a central government programme is itself a measure of how far the Foundation grew from Madhu Pandit Dasa's own original 1,500 child feeding effort in Bengaluru Rural District.