Project is mired in 'political and religious' issues, and questions have been raised over the MoU with Chennai Corporation.
Published Aug 25, 2022 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Aug 25, 2022 | 1:12 PM
Akshaya Patra's newly-built kitchen on Greams road in Chennai. (South First)
On February 15, 2020, former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and former Governor Banwarilal Purohit laid the foundation stone for the Akshaya Patra Foundation’s centralised kitchen located on Greams Road in Chennai. The idea was to provide free breakfast to school children.
Fast forward to the present: The NGO’s building is ready, and the kitchen fully set. It has been so for the “last seven months”.
However, there is a roadblock preventing the foundation from starting operations and distributing breakfast to around “15,000 students in the Greater Chennai Corporation limits” — the DMK government is yet to give it the green signal.
A 10-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Akshaya Patra, a non-profit trust run by ISKCON, and the Chennai Corporation on 25 January, 2020, to set up two centralised kitchens — one in Greams Road and another one in Perambur — under the “Kaalai Unnavu Thittam” (Free Breakfast Scheme) to provide food to school children studying in corporation-run schools.
Importantly, the capital expenditure for setting up the kitchen was mainly funded by Raj Bhavan, as the then Governor Purohit had donated ₹5 crore from his discretionary fund for the project.
When this reporter visited the Akshaya Patra’s centralised kitchen in Greams Road to understand its status, the kitchen appeared ready to begin operations.
Facilities and equipment installed in the centralised kitchen of Akshaya Patra on Greams Road. (South First)
Built on land allocated by the Chennai Corporation at one of the prime locations in the city, the kitchen has been set up on the first floor with a capacity to handle 12,000 meals. Inside the kitchen, a hygiene station, ovens, broad pans, kettles, grinders, cold storage, containers, etc., have been installed and kept ready.
Outside, insulated distribution vehicles to transport the prepared food are parked; a bio gas plant and an organic waste composter have been put in place; a solar hybrid water-heating system too has been fixed. The foundation also has 50 employees who are ready to run the kitchen.
Speaking about the delay in the project, Kodandarama Das, vice-president of the Akshaya Patra Foundation, told South First that they have been waiting for around seven months to get the go-ahead from the Tamil Nadu government, and also an appointment with Chief Minister MK Stalin to invite him to inaugurate the project.
“We have sent letters to the chief minister twice. We also met one of his secretaries. But we are yet to hear from them. They have not given either a positive or negative reply,” Das said.
The Akshaya Patra building premises on Greams Road, Chennai. (South First)
What explains the long wait for approval?
The Chennai Corporation’s tie-up with Akshaya Patra has, in fact, been mired in controversy since the time it was announced.
There were multiple reasons for it, including: The alleged Hindutva leanings of the foundation; the exclusion of garlic, onion and eggs in the food prepared by the NGO as they serve only “satvik” meals; and the then Governor allocating ₹5 crore from his discretionary fund (public money) for a project run by a private NGO.
Former Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit donated ₹5 crore from the Governor’s discretionary fund to support the project. (Supplied)
MDMK chief Vaiko was one of the Opposition leaders who strongly hit out at the then AIADMK government for signing the MoU with Akshaya Patra.
“The AIADMK government has handed over the scheme to a Hindutva group… the nutritious meal scheme would now become a ‘Manu-dharma meal scheme’,” he had charged.
Vaiko also accused former chief minister EPS of bowing to pressure from “someone” and allocating prime land in Chennai worth crores to Akshaya Patra in a “secretive manner”.
The DMK too had opposed the project. It criticised the AIADMK government for “engaging Akshaya Patra, known for its ‘food fascism'”, when the state had the resources to implement the scheme on its own.
The controversy also led to a heated debate in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, where the DMK demanded the government take over the project as the state has been a pioneer in implementing the mid-day meal scheme.
However, responding to the political controversy around the project, Akshaya Patra’s Das said that they are a “secular organisation which wants to feed the underprivileged children”.
When asked about the status of the project, a senior government official told South First that the delay in giving Akshaya Patra permission to begin operations was, among other reasons, due to the “debate around the religious agenda of the organisation”.
“The insistence of adherence to food without onion and garlic, etc., had caused a lot of debate about the religious agenda of the organisation in the Legislative Assembly, which is a cause for the lukewarm response to them,” the official said.
The official also said out that the MoU signed between Chennai Corporation and the foundation was “not technically sound”. There were, the official said, certain compliance issues from Akshaya Patra’s side, and added that the corporation’s Revenue Department had also not given its approval as yet.
“More than it being an implementation issue, it’s a policy issue,” the officer added.
With the DMK government recently announcing a free breakfast scheme for children studying in government schools from Classes 1 to 5 in all government schools across the state, there is even greater uncertainty about the MoU signed with Akshaya Patra.
Speaking to South First, Jayaram Venkatesan, activist and convenor of anti-corruption NGO ‘Arappor Iyakkam’ said that “since there is definitely an ideological issue, the government should terminate the MoU and take over the project by making sure that the children don’t suffer”.
