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The inauguration ceremony was held at Urwa Market at Mangalore. It was attended by District in-charge Minister B. Ramanatha Rai, Moideen Bava MLA, Karunya Sagar Dasa, President of the Akshaya Patra Foundation, Mangalore, ISKCON office bearers, school teachers and some other officials.
District in-charge Minister B. Ramanatha Rai delivered an address to the audience and was all praise for the immense work and support of Akshaya Patra Foundation towards school children. He praised the mid-day meal scheme of the government and the important role the NGO is playing in making it a reality.
Sri Madhu Pandit Dasa, Chairman, the Akshaya Patra Foundation said that the foundation started the Akshaya Patra meal programme with feeding 1500 children in Bangalore. The foundation thought that the maximum they could feed would not be more than 30000 children. But today they are feeding 15 lakh children, which he stated is unbelievable for them. This shows the potency of the programme and its scalability, he said.
Sri Madhu Pandit Dasa emphasized that the Akshaya Patra meal has the potential to break the recurring cycle of poverty and promote self-sustainability. Many children have got engineering and medical seats and some got placed in software companies as well.