Tag: Mid Day Meal

  • Government primary school children served rice with salt in mid-day meal in Ayodhya

    Express News Service

    Lucknow: The principal of Dihwa Pandey’s primary school in the Chaurebazar area in Ayodhya district was suspended by the district magistrate, on Thursday, for serving merely rice with salt to students in their mid-day meal. Acting on the block development officer (BDO) Amit Kumar Srivastava’s report, district magistrate Nitish Kumar suspended Ekta Yadav, the principal of the school serving a notice to gram pradhan. Officials from the education department have been asked to investigate the whole matter and conduct surprise inspections from time to time.

    The incident came to light on Wednesday when the parents of some of the students thronged the school and captured the entire scene on their mobile phones and made the video viral on social media. In the video, children are seen sitting on the floor and eating the rice-and-salt served under the Mid-Day Meal Scheme of the government.

    As per the local sources, the students had already sounded their parents about the poor quality of food they were getting at the school in the name of mid-day meal.

    On Wednesday, several villagers reached the school and found children eating rice with salt in the mid-day meal leading to huge protest by them. Villagers then approached BDO Amit Kumar and raised the issue with him. Villagers also complained that the principal of the school used to often remain absent duringthe school hours.

    “The teacher refuses to take responsibility, and the pradhan (village head) also refuses. Who is responsible then?” says the person filming, whose face is not visible on camera. “You can see all these children are eating rice and salt. Who will want to send their children to such a school? Yogi baba (Chief MinisterYogi Adityanath) should watch this video,” the videographer can be heard saying while giving a glimpse of the school.

    After suspending the principal, Ayodhya District Magistrate Nitish Kumar, confirmed that the incident had taken place on Tuesday. “I have ordered an enquiry into the incident. The enquiry will be conducted by Basic Siksha Adhikari (BSA). The principal has also been suspended,” said the DM.

    In 2019, a similar incident was reported from Mirzapur in eastern UP where in a government primary school, students were being served roti and salt. In fact, under the Mid-Day Meal scheme, the government schools procure wheat and rice from food procurement agencies besides getting compensation for thecooking costs at the rate of Rs 4.97 per student for primary classes and Rs 7.45 for upper primary classes from the state government.

    Each school is provided with a fixed amount to procure ingredients such as pulses, vegetables, oil, salt, spices, turmeric and LPG. The amount of mid-day meals provided to the schools is according to the number of students. Under the national programme, 60% of the cooking cost is shared by the Centre and 40% by the state.

    As per the sources, under the scheme, a student from any government or government-aided primary school is to be served a meal with a minimum content of 300 calories and 8-12 grams of protein a day for a minimum of 200 days.

     As per the menu of the mid-day meal, the students should get vegetables with chapatis along with a fruit on Monday. On Tuesday, they have to be served with dal and rice followed by vegetable pulao and milk on Wednesday. On Thursday, the children should get Dal with Chapatis followed by the vegetable pulao on Friday and a curry with rice on Saturday.

    Lucknow: The principal of Dihwa Pandey’s primary school in the Chaurebazar area in Ayodhya district was suspended by the district magistrate, on Thursday, for serving merely rice with salt to students in their mid-day meal. Acting on the block development officer (BDO) Amit Kumar Srivastava’s report, district magistrate Nitish Kumar suspended Ekta Yadav, the principal of the school serving a notice to gram pradhan. Officials from the education department have been asked to investigate the whole matter and conduct surprise inspections from time to time.

    The incident came to light on Wednesday when the parents of some of the students thronged the school and captured the entire scene on their mobile phones and made the video viral on social media. In the video, children are seen sitting on the floor and eating the rice-and-salt served under the Mid-Day Meal Scheme of the government.

    As per the local sources, the students had already sounded their parents about the poor quality of food they were getting at the school in the name of mid-day meal.

    On Wednesday, several villagers reached the school and found children eating rice with salt in the mid-day meal leading to huge protest by them. Villagers then approached BDO Amit Kumar and raised the issue with him. Villagers also complained that the principal of the school used to often remain absent during
    the school hours.

    “The teacher refuses to take responsibility, and the pradhan (village head) also refuses. Who is responsible then?” says the person filming, whose face is not visible on camera. “You can see all these children are eating rice and salt. Who will want to send their children to such a school? Yogi baba (Chief Minister
    Yogi Adityanath) should watch this video,” the videographer can be heard saying while giving a glimpse of the school.

    After suspending the principal, Ayodhya District Magistrate Nitish Kumar, confirmed that the incident had taken place on Tuesday. “I have ordered an enquiry into the incident. The enquiry will be conducted by Basic Siksha Adhikari (BSA). The principal has also been suspended,” said the DM.

    In 2019, a similar incident was reported from Mirzapur in eastern UP where in a government primary school, students were being served roti and salt. In fact, under the Mid-Day Meal scheme, the government schools procure wheat and rice from food procurement agencies besides getting compensation for the
    cooking costs at the rate of Rs 4.97 per student for primary classes and Rs 7.45 for upper primary classes from the state government.

    Each school is provided with a fixed amount to procure ingredients such as pulses, vegetables, oil, salt, spices, turmeric and LPG. The amount of mid-day meals provided to the schools is according to the number of students. Under the national programme, 60% of the cooking cost is shared by the Centre and 40% by the state.

    As per the sources, under the scheme, a student from any government or government-aided primary school is to be served a meal with a minimum content of 300 calories and 8-12 grams of protein a day for a minimum of 200 days.

     As per the menu of the mid-day meal, the students should get vegetables with chapatis along with a fruit on Monday. On Tuesday, they have to be served with dal and rice followed by vegetable pulao and milk on Wednesday. On Thursday, the children should get Dal with Chapatis followed by the vegetable pulao on Friday and a curry with rice on Saturday.

  • Centre approves ‘PM Poshan’ scheme roll-out for providing hot cooked meal to school kids

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the roll-out of the ‘PM POSHAN in Schools’ scheme that will provide hot cooked meal to students of elementary 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.

    The existing mid-day meal scheme will be subsumed into the PM Poshan Shakti Nirman scheme with the addition of several new components in it, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said after the meeting.

    “The CCEA, chaired by Prime Minister, has approved the continuation of ‘National Scheme for PM POSHAN in Schools’ for the five years, from 2021-22 to 2025-26, with a financial outlay of Rs 54061.73 crores from the central government and Rs 31,733.17 crore from the state governments and union territory administrations,” the government said in a statement.

    The central government will also bear the additional cost of about Rs 45,000 crore on food grains. “Therefore, the total scheme budget will amount to Rs 1,30,794.90 crore,” the statement added.

    The PM POSHAN scheme will cover all school children studying in classes 1-8 of government and government-aided schools. “The scheme will cover about 11.80 crore children studying in 11.20 lakh schools across the country,” the statement said.

  • Women who received free meals in primary school have children with improved linear growth: Study

    The authors used nationally representative data on mothers and their children spanning 1993 to 2016 to assess whether MDM supports intergenerational improvements in child linear growth.

  • Pay for mid-day meal workers hiked to Rs 2,000 in Jharkhand

    By PTI
    RANCHI: The Jharkhand government has decided to hike the pay for mid-day meal kitchen assistants at government schools by Rs 500, officials said on Wednesday.

    Following the hike, 79,551 kitchen assistants in the state would get Rs 2,000 per head each month for the work, they said.

    The hike will be effective from April 1, 2020, they added.

    Chief Minister Hemant Soren has approved the spending of Rs 39.79 crore for the revised pay.

    Under the central scheme, kitchen assistants get Rs 1,000 per month for 10 months a year, of which 60 per cent is given by the Centre and 40 per cent by the state, officials said.

    The Jharkhand government earlier hiked the pay by Rs 500, taking the total to Rs 1,500 per head each month.

    With the current hike, the pay rose to Rs 2,000.