The Hindu : Meal scheme to be pepped up

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 10, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Meal scheme to be pepped up

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD June 9. Two items -- hot pongal and tomato rice -- are being added to the mid-day meal scheme under which school-going children are now served rice and sambar, the District Collectors' Conference was told on its opening day here on Monday.

The items are being added following persistent demand from Collectors, S.P. Singh, Commissioner, Civil Supplies, said while making a presentation.

However, students have to wait to taste the two items, as the Collectors have been counselled not to be in a hurry to add them to the menu, but to go for them in a selective and phased manner.

A 50-day training programme on skills development is to be conducted next month for agencies involved in the mid-day meal scheme at the mandal level. A model manual on the training has also been prepared.

Seventy per cent of the schools implementing the scheme -- which has been appreciated even outside the country, according to I.V.Subba Rao, Secretary, School Education -- are using LPG for cooking food. The State Government is pressing the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. to provide 100 per cent gas connections. If this fails, the connections under the Deepam scheme are to be utilised.

As against the aim of establishing 68,000 kitchen sheds for the mid-day meal scheme so far only 8,000 have been built. Expressing disappointment, the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, directed the Collectors that they should establish a kitchen if there was school attendance of 100 students.

They could utilise drought, panchayat and local bodies' funds for building the sheds. If these funds were used, Mr. Naidu was confident that the required sheds could be erected in two months.

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