A proposal to increase the existing slab of cooking costs of the school mid-day meal scheme and increase the allocation per child for the supplementary nutrition programme to ₹20 is being considered by the government now, Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty has said.
The cooking cost given to schools for mid-day meal scheme would be revised as ₹6 per child in primary classes (current rate is ₹4.97) and ₹8 per child in upper primary classes (current rate is ₹7.45), he told the Assembly on Wednesday.
He was replying to a calling attention motion by Anwar Sadath on the need for allocating more money for the mid-day meal scheme in schools.
The supplementary nutrition programme, wherein every child is provided milk twice a week and egg/banana once a week, is a State-run programme. However, the funds for the same have to be found from the allocation given by the Centre for the mid-day meal scheme.
The government has been receiving many memoranda from schools pointing out that the expenses for providing milk, egg and banana to children would come to ₹20 a child and that as the cost of raw materials and fuel has gone up, the cooking costs also need to be increased.
The government is thus considering revising the cooking cost and allocating ₹20 a child per week for providing milk, egg and banana.
