MID DAY MEALS

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Context - The State Government of Karnataka has decided to provide eggs under the Midday Meal Scheme.

Details

• The State Government of Karnataka has announced that from the next academic session, Students would also get eggs under the midday meal scheme.
  • Karnataka would become the 13th state to provide eggs under the midday meal scheme.
• Mid Day Meal Scheme aims to enhance the nutrition levels of school-going children by providing them with hot cooked meals.

Mid Day Meal Scheme

• The Midday Meal Scheme is a school meal programme in India designed to better the nutritional standing of school-age children nationwide, under the Ministry of Education.
• The programme supplies free lunches on working days for children in primary and upper primary classes in government, government-aided, local body, Education Guarantee Scheme, and alternate innovative education centres, Madarsa and Maqtabs supported under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and National Child Labour Project schools run by the ministry of labour.
• Serving 120 million children in over 1.27 million schools and Education Guarantee Scheme centres, the Midday Meal Scheme is the largest of its kind in the world.
• The Midday Meal Scheme has been implemented in the Union Territory of Puducherry under the French Administration since 1930.
• In post-independent India, the Midday meal Scheme was first launched in Tamil Nadu, during the early 60s.
  • The government of India initiated the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) on 15 August 1995.
  • By 2002, the scheme was implemented in all of the states under the orders of the Supreme Court of India.
• The name of the scheme was changed to PM-POSHAN (Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman) Scheme, in September 2021, by the Ministry of Education, which is the nodal ministry for the scheme.
  • The Central Government also announced that an additional 24 lakh students receiving pre-primary education at government and government-aided schools would also be included under the scheme by 2022.
• The Midday Meal Scheme is covered under the National Food Security Act, 2013.

The Parliamentary Committee report on Mid Day Meal Scheme

• A Parliamentary committee raised concern over the ‘under-utilization’ of funds under Mid Day Mean schemes, which are considered the “backbone of education” in the country.
• According to the report, out of the total allocation of Rs 40,576 crore under the Centrally Sponsored Schemes that come under the Department of School Education and Literacy, only Rs 23,572 crore was spent.
• The Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports has directed the Center to identify the factors behind the underutilization.
• The PM-Poshan scheme, under which cooked meals are provided to students in schools, officially covers 11.8 crore children in classes up to class VIII.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-midday-meal-supplements-7866668/