Inside India: Food for schoolchildren improves with help from charities

Indian labourers work alongisde an automatic 'roti' maker at the non-profit Akshaya Patra Foundation in Vrindavan.

Schoolgirls eat lunch at the Chaumuha Primary School.

A worker stirs vegetables at the non-profit Akshaya Patra Foundation in Vrindavan.

Indian schoolgirls eat lunch together at the Chaumuha Primary School.

A worker loads containers of food onto a truck at the non-profit Akshaya Patra Foundation.

Indian schoolgirls bring their plates to be cleaned after eating lunch organised by the non-profit Akshaya Patra Foundation, at the Chaumuha Primary School on the outskirts of Vrindavan.

Workers fill containers with 'roti' in the kitchen at the Akshaya Patra Foundation in Vrindavan.

A man serves lunch, organised by the non-profit Akshaya Patra Foundation, to schoolgirls at the Chaumuha Primary School.

Indian labourers work inside the kitchen at the non-profit Akshaya Patra Foundation in Vrindavan.

An Indian labourer loads containers of food onto a truck at the non-profit Akshaya Patra Foundation.

Labourers work inside the kitchen at the non-profit Akshaya Patra Foundation.

An Indian schoolgirl sits in a classroom at the Chaumuha Primary School on the outskirts of Vrindavan.

Churning out 1.2 tonnes of curry in under an hour, staff running the spotlessly clean, high-tech kitchen are hoping to turn around the shocking reputation of India’s free school lunch scheme. As a large machine rolls out thousands of fluffy, hot rotis (flat breads), aproned men add spices to vegetables and broths cooking in giant steel pots in the three-storey kitchen in the Hindu holy city of Vrindavan. “We had the vision that no child should be deprived of education because of hunger,” said Bharatarshabha Dasa, spokesman for the Akshaya Patra Foundation, which manages the kitchen.

Hampered by corruption and inefficiency, the government’s midday meal programme is the world’s largest, with 120 million children to feed daily. Pupils often fall sick after eating contaminated and poorly prepared food, and in 2013 about two dozen children died in an impoverished district of Bihar after they ate a meal laced with pesticide.

Dasa’s operations started small in 2000, serving just 1,500 children. “Now we are catering to over 1.4 million children in 10,770 schools across 10 states,” Dasa said.

Other charities also provide lunches, but many schools are responsible for running the scheme, especially in rural areas.

But many schools lack proper kitchens and qualified cooks. At the Vrindavan kitchen, food moves seamlessly on chutes and conveyor belts. Once in steel containers, the meals are packed into vans which navigate pot-holed roads to reach 2,000 government-run schools in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura region. The charity receives subsidised produce and government grants, with each meal costing nine rupees (14 cents).

For many children, free lunches are their only substantial daily meal. The government scheme, which started nationally in 2001, is aimed at enticing poor and vulnerable children to attend class.

One teacher, Prem Lata Saini, remembers the food that used to be served at her school in Mathura before the foundation stepped in. “The food used to come from the village head’s house. Sometimes it would be just some boiled chickpeas,” she said. “What happened in Bihar was shocking but not surprising.”

Unicef, the UN children’s fund, says 57 million children in India, which counts itself an eonomic power, are malnourished. The former prime minister, Manmohan Singh, described this as a “national shame”.

At the brick-and-mud Chaumuah school in Mathura, scores of girls in khaki uniforms sit on floor mats once the gong sounds for lunch. “There is hardly enough food ever in the house for all six of us. I like this food, it’s hot and tasty,” 12-year-old Anju Singh said. She said she spent her days after school taking care of her five younger siblings because her ill mother was mostly bed-ridden.

Uday Mani Patel, an Uttar Pradesh government official, said more non-profit organisations needed to take part in the scheme, taking over from schools.

Dasa said his foundation was training other charities to set up their own large kitchens to provide meals.

“[But] More people must come forward.”

Photos by Chandan Khanna for AFP