GOD's own kitchen (Rashmi Bansal)

Among the series of books on the theme of entrepreneurship by Rashmi Bansal, this book is little offbeat falling in category of social entrepreneurship but through the framework of spirituality & hence GOD appears rightfully in it's title. This is the real storyline of how ISCKON built a network of kitchens serving mid-day meal to mostly underprivileged children in government schools across various states of India.

Originally the idea was conceived in the ISCKON temple of Bangalore. Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai used to visit the temple once in a while & meet monk Madhu Pandit, an IITian from Mumbai. During such visit, Mohan asked Panditji to propose some initiative; which he offered to fund with intention to give back to the society. The khichadi being served as prasadam at temple to all devotees instilled the idea of providing meal to underprivileged students from nearby government schools. Initially the meals were cooked in the same kitchen of temple & was served in 1990 for the first time. Eventually separate kitchen had to be set-up due to practical problems arised & this bangalore temple initiative formed the backbone of all other kitchens been set-up by ISCKON monks in various cities across various states of India over the period of next decade.

The mid-day meal program is named as AKSHAYPATRA, the vessel which used to serve food endlessly as referred in Indian mythology Mahabharata. Madhu Pandit run the program as social enterprise keeping all books of accounts dully audited as per governmental rules & regulations. He appointed well educated professionals for this purpose along with devoted monks running the program in capacity of each center head.

Initially mid-day program was funded solely on the basis of donations, Sudha Murthy of Infosys foundation being the major donor as & when required during fund crisis. Later Panditji approched & collaborated with government to run mid-day program across the country. Government agreed to supply grains directly to ISCKON kitchen instead of school through district administration.

Various challenges like local menu, scarcity of funds, bureaucratic permissions, logistics, land acquisition, workers availability, mechanization for mass production etc. are detailed in book along with way out to smoothly run the mid-day program. The program template is replicated in other part of the world as well by Panditji.

It's vey interesting to know, ISCKON monks involved in Akshaypatra foundation are very well educated & many of then from IITs & IIMs. The book gives another perspective to give back to society through social enterprise run by highly educated professionals keeping the accountability of activities & funds. And this is the main differentiator of Akshaypatra foundation from other NGOS.