* Mid-day meal scheme was started to lure children to come to school and improve enrolment with help of free food.
* It is the world's largest school feeding programme, reaching out to about 120 million children in 1.27 million schools and education centres across India.
* The roots of the programme can be traced to the pre-Independence era when a mid-day meal programme was introduced by the British administration for disadvantaged children in the Madras Municipal Corporation in 1925. In 1962-63, Tamil Nadu became the first state in India to initiate a noon meal programme for children in primary schools.
* The National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) was launched as a centrally sponsored scheme Aug, 15 1995, and initially covered Classes 1 to 5 in all government and aided schools. Under the scheme, foodgrain was supplied free.
* On Nov 28, 2001, the Supreme Court of India directed the government to provide cooked meals to all children in all government and aided primary schools. In September 2004, it was revised to provide cooked mid-day meals with 300 calories and 8-12 grams of protein each to all children studying in Classes 1 to 5.
* In October 2007, children in Classes 6 to 8 were also covered under the scheme. Initially, children in educationally backward blocks were covered, but from April 2008 children across the country started benefitting.
* The calorific value of a mid-day meal in the upper primary stage has been fixed at a minimum of 700 calories and 20 grams of protein.
* In schools across India, there is a provision of either the schools preparing the meals in their own premises or getting them from an NGO appointed by the government as the nodal agency for providing mid-day meals.
* The government allocated Rs.7,324 crore for the mid-day meal scheme in 2007-08. The figure rose to Rs.8,000 crore for the years 2008-2010. For 2010-2011, it jumped to Rs.9,440 crore and to Rs.10,380 crore for 2011-12. In 2012-13, the allocation was Rs.11,937 crore and further raised to Rs.13,215 crore for 2013-14.
* A cook-cum-helper is paid Rs.1,000 per month. There is one cook-cum-helper for a school with 25 students and two cooks for a school with 26 to 100 students. There is one additional cook for every addition of 100 students. Preference is given to women in engagement of cooks-cum-helpers.
* To empower mothers of children covered under the programme, the government has asked them to supervise the preparation and serving of the meal and to exercise effective vigil.
|
