Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Madhu Bangarappa on Friday said egg, banana, or groundnut chikki will be distributed to the children of both the government and aided schools across the State twice a week with the purpose of improving nutrition among the children.
Speaking after inaugurating the State-level programme of providing eggs, bananas, or chikkis to the children of class 1 to 10 under the midday meal scheme, at the government high school at Hosahalli in Mandya, the Minister said nearly 60 lakh children from the government and aided schools will be availing the benefit under the midday meal scheme. Around 1.20 crore eggs will be provided to schools twice a week.
Mr. Bangarappa said the initiative of providing eggs, bananas, or chikkis was first introduced along with the midday meals for the students of classes 1 to 8. However, it was felt that the children of class 9 should also get the benefit as the school authorities said it was difficult for them to ignore class 9 children while serving eggs to class 8 children since they would have lunch together in the school. “Even the teachers expressed the same view. When this was brought to the notice of the Chief Minister, he asked to extend the scheme to all the students of class 1 to 10, facilitating distribution of egg, banana or chikki twice a week,” the Minister informed.
31,000 teachers transferred
Mr. Bangarappa said as many as 31,000 teachers had been transferred through counselling and added that around 90,000 teachers had sought transfers.
The Minister said the Chief Minister has issued directions for appointing 10,000 more guest teachers to ensure that no school should face shortage of teachers. Already, 30,000 guest teachers had been posted to schools in the State.
Mr. Bangarappa said meetings would be convened soon in all districts engaging the local elected representatives and officials to address any issues concerning his department.
In his address, Minister in-charge of Mandya district N. Cheluvarayaswamy said the government launched the programme of distributing eggs under the meal scheme with the aim of providing nutritional food to the children from rural areas and economically backward.
The government was also mulling over launching programmes for women and farmers who are economically backward, he said, while disclosing that the Gruha Lakshmi scheme will be launched on August 30. The schemes of Shakti, Anna Bhagya and Gruha Jyothi – the guarantees announced by the government – were benefiting the people for their empowerment.
The Minister said the children who don’t want boiled eggs will be getting either banana or chikki twice a week. Two boiled eggs will be served twice a week. “We are happy that the government chose Mandya for launching the State-level programme of distributing eggs under the midday meal scheme.”
Plans are afoot to launch Krishi Bhagya for farmers, he said, adding that the MySugar factory in Mandya will be developed further for the benefitting sugarcane farmers from the district.
Mr. Cheluvarayaswamy said a sum of ₹10 crore had been released to the public works department and ₹10 crore to ₹15 crore to the ZP in Mandya for the payment of bills for the works done in Mandya in the respective departments.
