The State government has reduced the amount of egg, banana, or groundnut chikki, being provided as supplementary nutrition for children from classes 1 to 8, from two days a week to one day.
A circular was issued by the Director, PM-Poshan, School Education Department, in this regard. According to the order, in the first phase, one egg/banana/groundnut chikki will be distributed from June 20 to July 15 per student a week or until further orders from the government.
The government started distributing boiled eggs, banana, or chikki as supplementary nutrition along with midday meals to the students of class 1 to 8 studying in government and aided schools across the State in 2023-24. The distribution first started in seven districts of Kalyana Karnataka region from December 1, 2021, where the malnourishment indicator was alarming, under the Pradhan Mantri Shakti Nirman programme.
The Commissioner for the Department of Public Instruction had submitted the proposal to the government to provide egg, banana, or chikki to the students of classes 1 to 10 across the State for 100 days in the academic year of 2022-23 at a cost of ₹347.11 crore. Finally, the government gave approval to give egg, banana, or chikki to classes 1 to 8 for 46 days this academic year. So, students were getting egg, banana, or chikki with midday meals weekly twice.
Speaking to The Hindu, Ritesh Kumar Singh, Principal Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, said: “Since we started this programme, certain weeks, we gave two eggs; 46 eggs in year, one egg per week for three months, and two eggs per week for four months. Last year, in November, December, January, and February, we gave two eggs per week. The reason was that last year, even though it was 46 eggs for the entire year, we started only in August 2022. In August, September, and October, we gave only one egg per week.”
“We request to the Finance Department to make it two eggs per week and 80 eggs per year is still pending. But the decision will be taken during the State Budget finalisation. For now, temporarily, we will give one egg per week for the next four weeks,” he added.
