Encouraging “date food” to allow community people to provide special meals to children on occasions and festivals, using crops from the “school nutrition garden” to cook midday meals, promoting ethnic cuisines and innovative menus Cooking competitions for giving and participation of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) and Women Self Help Groups in the implementation of the scheme are among the features that have been added to the new scheme.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the roll-out of the ‘PM Poshan in Schools’ scheme, which will provide hot cooked meals to students of primary classes in government and government-aided schools across the country. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Today the CCEA approved the PM POSHAN (Nutrition Power Building) scheme to provide a hot cooked meal in government and government aided schools from 2021-22 to 2025-26, earlier known as ‘National Scheme for Mid-Day Meal in Schools’. program. Known as the Mid-Day Meal Scheme. It is a centrally sponsored scheme covering all school children studying in classes 1 to 8 in government, government-aided schools,” Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told reporters.
“Under the new scheme, the mid-day meal has been extended to students studying in pre-primary or kindergarten apart from children studying in classes 1 to 8 in government and government-aided schools across India. Crore children will be benefited. In 11.20 lakh schools,” he said.
CCEA approves continuation of the National Scheme of PM Nutrition in Schools for a period of five years from 2021-22 to 2025-26 with a financial outlay of ₹ 54061.73 crore from the Central Government and ₹31733.17 crore from the State Governments and Union Territories Is. .
“The central government will also bear the additional cost of about Rs 45000 crore on food grains. Hence, the total plan budget will be 130794.90 crore. The concept of date food will be widely encouraged. Tithi Bhojan is a community participation program in which people provide special food to children on special occasions and festivals.
“The government is also promoting the development of ‘School Nutrition Gardens’ in schools to give children a first-hand experience with nature and gardening. The harvest from these gardens is used in the scheme to provide additional micronutrients. Schools Nutrition gardens have already been developed in more than 3 lakh schools,” he said.
While social audit of the scheme has been made mandatory in all districts, special provision has been made for providing supplementary nutritional material to children in aspirational districts and districts with high anaemia.
“Cooking competitions will be encouraged at all levels from village level to national level to promote ethnic cuisines and innovative menus based on locally available ingredients and vegetables. Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) will be involved in the implementation of the scheme. And participation of women self-help groups will be encouraged. Use of locally grown traditional food items will be encouraged to boost local economic development,” Pradhan said.
“The field visits will be conducted to monitor and monitor the progress for students from renowned universities and institutes and trainee teachers of Regional Institutes of Education (RIEs) and District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs).
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