ISBR Business School had organized an industrial visit on the 11Th of February, 2020 to the famous Akshaya Patra located in ISKCON Temple, Bangalore for 3rd trimester PGDM students.
Prof. Dr. Lakshmi and Prof. V. V. Rao were the faculty coordinators for the visit.
The flow of the event:
We started traveling from the college campus at 9:00 am and reached Akshaya Patra Foundation at 10.30 am, where we were greeted by Mr. Praveen, who then guided us on our entire industry visit.
We were presented with a talk from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm on “trAPPed- How to manage digital distraction” by Mr. Vallabha Chaitanya Prabhu, who also discussed the importance of meditation in our lives and taught us the art of meditation by chanting.
We then took a tour of the ISKCON temple and later headed towards the food section by 12:15 pm where faculty coordinators and most of the students volunteered as “Lunch Warriors” and “Thirst Warriors” and served food to 100+ people at the temple food service section while some students helped in other activities in the dishwashing area. After the busy lunch hours and volunteer work, we were served a delicious meal and subsequently headed towards the world’s biggest kitchen, Akshaya Patra kitchen at 1:30 pm.
Mr. Praveen along with a guide in the kitchen took the students on a kitchen tour from 1:30 pm to 2:00 pm. The guide explained to us in detail the entire process of cooking meals for 18,00,000 kids every day starting from the procurement of vegetables to the transport of food to the schools where they are served. He took us through 2 levels of the kitchen, briefing us about the machines, tools, techniques, cold storage rooms, packing and loading of food into the vans.
Ms. Ashwini presented to us from 2:00 pm to 2:30 pm about volunteering work and the community of volunteers at AIKYA, a leadership forum at Akshaya Patra Foundation, and encouraged students to take part in it.
We left Akshaya Patra Foundation at 2:45 pm and reached college at 4:30 pm.
Learning from the Industry visit:
It was the first time ever that we witnessed such a huge kitchen that works every day, serving food to millions of underprivileged kids. We saw how effectively and efficiently the kitchen works on a huge scale, employing hundreds of people for various activities.
The impact of such work is multifold. It not only eliminates the hunger of millions of kids every day but also helps them with their education and well-being and development of the society as a whole. Bringing people together and working towards a common goal is not an easy task for such a big organization but they have successfully achieved it and are working with the hopes of reaching 5 million meals a day. Akshaya Patra provides us an excellent example of ways to use technology and human skills for effective production and supply chain without wastage and unnecessary use of non-renewable resources. It makes one think of alternate ways of doing work and contributing to the well-being of society.