‘Free food kitchen’ to be introduced across nation

Visakhapatnam: All-India President of Sri Satya Sai Seva Organisations Nimish Pandya said that the ‘free food kitchen’ programme under which lunch and dinner are being served free of cost to the attendants of patients in 16 government hospitals across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana would further augmented and replicated  across the nation.

Addressing at press conference here on Thursday, Pandya outlined the numerous service activities of the organisation undertaken drawing inspiration from the teachings of Satya Sai Baba’s  ‘Sathya, Dharma, Shanti, Prema, and Ahimsa’. Sri Satya Sai village integrated programme was yet another unique scheme under which the organisation targets to transform at least one village in every state into an ‘adharsha gramam’ by 2020, he added.

Talking on Sai Vidya Jyothi programme, Pandya said it catered to the holistic development of children who were not so fortunate to study in formal schools for various reasons. There were over 900 such centres adopted across the nation, 192 of them in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, he added.

The  Balvikas classes are conducted with the main objective of initiating the child into a course of character building by developing self-discipline, providing healthy association, inculcating habits of reading, listening, studying and reciting as they would sublimate the child’s growing mind. The aim of the programme was to teach youngsters under the age of 14 value-based concepts. “The Bala Vikas programme being organised for over 50 years now was yielding the desired results. There are 15 lakh children are attending the classes across the nation and planned to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the programme next year,” Pandya said.

“In reaching this objective, the organisation has been running 14 Sri Satya Sai Rural Vocational Training Centres  across the nation, five in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, under which job-oriented skills were imparted to youth to make them employable. The organisation is planning to increase the skill and vocational centres more covering the rural pockets across the country by 2020, he added. 

National Vice-President N Ramani, State President, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, R Lakshmana Rao and State Vice-President VR Nageswara Rao were present.