Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam

Trust clarifies on donations

VISAKHAPATNAM: Giving a clarification on a report in a section of the press recently, chief coordinator of Akshaya Patra Foundation, ISKCON-Bangalore, Achyutha Krishna Das, said at a press meet here on Tuesday that the “representatives of Akshaya Patra do not raise donations in the name of ISKCON and Akshaya Patra is an independent charitable trust registered in Bangalore and has nothing to do with ISKCON.”

The clarification had come following a report that was published after a press meet convened by the ISKCON local chapter, wherein its president alleged that the donations for Askshaya Patra were fraudulently being collected by the representative of ISKCON-Bangalore.

The chief coordinator of the foundation informed that Akshaya Patra, a mid-day meal programme for children in government schools, was initiated by ISKCON-Bangalore in June 2000. Encouraged by the success of the programme, ISKCON-Bangalore set up a separate charitable trust and called it Akshaya Patra Foundation. Moreover, he also noted that ISKCON- Bangalore is a separate entity on its own and has nothing to do with ISKOCN- Mumbai or any other ISKCON bodies in the country or worldwide.

“Today, the mid-day programme has been successfully implemented in States like Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh in collaboration with the respective State Governments. In total, we provide free meal to over 9.73 lakh students in the six States every day. The mission is to see that ‘no child shall go hungry’. In this city, we launched the programme in Gajuwaka a month ago and, as of now, over 5,400 children in seven schools are being benefited,” he said.

Mr. Das gave a power-point presentation to highlight the successful running of the programme in various States with the help of centralised and fully automated kitchens.

On the donation aspect, he said that the government of Andhra Pradesh gives Rs. 3 per child, whereas the cost of providing hygienic meals comes to Rs. 4.50 per child. “The difference of the amount and the cost of running the kitchens are raised through donations. Since it is an independent and secular foundation and not a religious trust, the donations are subjected to 100 tax exemption under Section 35 A of the IT Act, and this itself is an indication of our exclusive identity. The working of the foundation is transparent and it is subject to audit by KPMG,” said Mr. Achyutha Krishna Das. He also informed that the success of Akshaya Patra prompted the Harvard Business School to do a study and the foundation had strong advisory board with the former Chief Justice of India Rajendra Babu heading it. “We are not fly-by-night operators, as projected by the local chapter and our success can be viewed in the website www.akshayapatra.org,” said Mr. Krishna Das. Local patrons Matapalli Chalamayya and Garuda Pattabhi Ramayya were present.

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