Contribution to the education sector is always linked to setting up schools, teaching or supplying free books. But when a child is born in a ‘below the poverty line’ family, where the next meal of the day is uncertain, free books are not a very strong incentive to get that child into school. With this thought in mind the government of India had launched the Mid-Day Meal programme in early 1980s. Children from the poorest parts of the country sometimes walked several kilometers everyday to school, just to feed their hungry stomachs. However, due to corruption and bad management, this scheme had really never attained its optimum potential.
On 2nd January, Yatra reached Hyderabad. That’s where we met Manoj Jain, the CEO of Naandi Foundation, who told us how he manages to feed a million school children everyday to keep them from quitting school at a young age. Naandi Foundation is one of the few public private partnerships that have been successful in this endeavor. It feeds a million mouths everyday at government run schools in hundreds of hunger struck districts of our country. Naandi has to encounter insurgency threats in Naxal infested areas, government bureaucracy at all levels of their operations and sometimes politicized union teachers. But good management, excellent distribution and mass production keep Naandi going.
A centralized kitchen is set up in every state which Naandi operates in. This food is then transported to various schools spread across villages and districts. The kitchen is set up on donation money and the rice is supplied by the government free of cost. Vegetable, labour and transportation cost is borne by Naandi. Good management and mass production of food have got down the per thali plate cost to just Rs. 4. According to Manoj Jain, the CEO of Naandi Foundation, his enterprise works on really thin margins.
Naandi Foundation started when Jain was approached by Andhra Pradesh’s Naidu Government in the year 2003, after Supreme Court’s guidelines on the Mid-Day Meal programme were passed. Today apart from Andhra Pradesh, Naandi operates in states like Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and so on.
Apparently, one of the reasons behind the success of Naandi is that, it has given governments of each state a project to show off to the voters during elections. So, when Manoj Jain was asked, why he wasn’t doing enough publicity for Naandi, laughed and said, “Can’t be more popular than the government, will be kicked out!”
On 2nd January, Yatra reached Hyderabad. That’s where we met Manoj Jain, the CEO of Naandi Foundation, who told us how he manages to feed a million school children everyday to keep them from quitting school at a young age. Naandi Foundation is one of the few public private partnerships that have been successful in this endeavor. It feeds a million mouths everyday at government run schools in hundreds of hunger struck districts of our country. Naandi has to encounter insurgency threats in Naxal infested areas, government bureaucracy at all levels of their operations and sometimes politicized union teachers. But good management, excellent distribution and mass production keep Naandi going.
A centralized kitchen is set up in every state which Naandi operates in. This food is then transported to various schools spread across villages and districts. The kitchen is set up on donation money and the rice is supplied by the government free of cost. Vegetable, labour and transportation cost is borne by Naandi. Good management and mass production of food have got down the per thali plate cost to just Rs. 4. According to Manoj Jain, the CEO of Naandi Foundation, his enterprise works on really thin margins.
Naandi Foundation started when Jain was approached by Andhra Pradesh’s Naidu Government in the year 2003, after Supreme Court’s guidelines on the Mid-Day Meal programme were passed. Today apart from Andhra Pradesh, Naandi operates in states like Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and so on.
Apparently, one of the reasons behind the success of Naandi is that, it has given governments of each state a project to show off to the voters during elections. So, when Manoj Jain was asked, why he wasn’t doing enough publicity for Naandi, laughed and said, “Can’t be more popular than the government, will be kicked out!”
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