Akshaya Patra served meals, prasadam at Kumbh Mela

Prayag Raj (Uttar Pradesh):

Akshaya Patra

Foundation, a Bengaluru-based non-profit organisation, fed food and khichdi prasadam to around 20,000 pilgrims a day at the just-concluded Kumbh Mela-2019 here. This is for the first time that Akshaya Patra had camped at the mela.

Naveena Neerada Dasa, head of strategic communications and projects (

Iskcon

), told TOI that Akshaya Patra served meal at Sector-6 in the mela premises and donnas of khichdi at Sector-4, and the initiative was aimed at facilitating pilgrims with good-quality food.

The meal comprised roti, sabji, rice, dal and a sweet. “We follow a standard process which ensures hygiene and quality in preparing meal. Cooking equipment like cauldrons, trolleys, rice chutes and dal tanks, cutting boards and knives are sterilised in steam before being used. The vessels are made 304-grade stainless steel, considered best for cooking and handling food,” he explained.

They had deployed kitchen on wheel (KoW) in Sector-4 to provide khichdi prasadam to devotees. “The mobile kitchen has a storage capacity of 9-10 tonnes of food, and it contains a generator, water purifier and a room that accommodate six staff members. KoW has been designed to help people during calamities,” he said, adding each kitchen served an average of 10,000 people a day.

Gouri Trivedi, a pilgrim from Patna, hailed the initiative of Akshaya Patra at Mela, saying: “As I have seen, Akshaya Patra is the only organization to have served high-quality food to passersby, that too for free. We were also enlightened with a discourse on Bhagvad Gita conducted at Iskcon camp.” She also wished Akshaya Patra start its midday meal services in Bihar too.

Volunteers Rohit and Rakesh said that 40 tents and five dormitories were set up at their camp.

(The writer was at Kumbh

Mela at the invitation of Iskcon)


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