Mid-Day Meal Scheme

National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education, popularly known as the Mid-Day Meal Scheme, covers nearly 12 crore children. It has emerged as the world’s largest school feeding programme. The Scheme, launched on 15 August 1995, was revised in September 2004 with the following main objectives :

1. To boost universalisation of primary education (classes I – V) by improving enrolment, attendance, retention, and learning levels of children especially those belonging to disadvantaged sections
2. To improve nutritional status of students of primary stage and
3. To provide nutritional support to students of primary stage in drought-affected areas during summer vacation also.

The Scheme envisages a provision of a cooked mid-day meal with minimum calorie content of 300 calories and 8-12 gms of protein for all children studying in classes I-V in :

1. Government, local body and Government-aided schools, and
2. Education Guarantee Scheme and Alternative and Innovative Education Centres. Central Assistance to State Governments/UTs is provided for the following components :
   1. Supply of free food grains (wheat/rice) @ 100 gms per child per school day from the nearest FCI godown,
   2. Reimbursement of actual cost incurred in transportation of food grains from nearest FCI godown to the Primary school subject to the following ceiling (effective from 1 October 2004),
   3. Rs 100 per quintal for 11 special category states viz., Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal, and
   4. Rs 75 per quintal for other States and UTs.
3. Assistance for meeting cooking cost @ Re 1 per child per school day from 1 September 2004.
4. Assistance for management, monitoring and evaluation (MME) @ 1.8 per cent of the (i) to (iii) above.
5. Assistance for provision of cooked mid-day meal during summer vacations to school children in areas declared by State Governments as ‘‘drought-affected’’.

The programme is being implemented in a decentralised manner with the involvement of local level agencies such as village panchayats, village education committees, school management committees, parent teacher associations, etc. Cooking is being done by women self-help groups in many cases. In urban areas, NGOs have undertaken this task. Cooks, particularly women from SC/ ST communities, are also being engaged.

For effective monitoring of the programme, constitution of steering-cummonitoring committees at national state, district and block level has been envisaged. All States have constituted SMCs at various levels. For timely distribution of food grains and maintenance of its quality, ICI has appointed a Nodal Officer for each State to oversee the problems relating to quality, quantity and timely supply.During 2005-06, 9.53 lakh primary schools/sections and EGS/AIE Centres were covered under the scheme with 22.5 lakh MT food grains allocated (64 per cent lifted) to various States/UTs. About 11.94 children were covered during the period.

URL – http://www.india.gov.in/sectors/education/education3.php#5