Mid Day Meal Scheme

Midday meal scheme is a multi-faceted programmeof the Government of India that, among other things, seeks to address issues of food security, lack of nutrition and access to education on a pan nation scale .[1]It involves provision for free lunch on working days for children in Primary and Upper Primary Classes in Government , Govt. Aided, Local Body, Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS) and Alternate Innovative Education (AIE) Centres, Madarsa and Maqtabs supported under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Schools run by Ministry of Labour .The primary objective of the scheme is to provide hot cooked meal to children of primary and upper primary classes.[2] According to the government, it is the world’s largest school feeding programme , reaching out to about 120,000,000 children in over 1,265,000 schools and Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS) centres across the country.[3] Contents

In 1953, Uttar Pradesh Government introduced a scheme, on voluntary basis, to provide meals consisting of boiled or roasted or sprouted grams, ground-nut, puffed rice, boiled potatoes or seasonal fruits. During 1962-63 ,Tamil Nadu became the first state in India to initiate a noon meal programme to children with the launch of Mid Day Meal Programme in primary schools .[8] On 1st July 1982, Nutritious Meal Programme was introduced and initially implemented in Child Welfare Centres for pre-school Children in the age group of 2 to 5 years and to the primary school children in the age group of 5 to 9 years in rural areas. The programme was subsequently extended to Nutritious Meal Centres in urban areas from 15th September 1982 and later extended to school students of the age group of 10 to 15 years from September 1984. The Children in the age group of 2 to 5 years and the students in 1st to 5th standard receive nutritious meal throughout the year (365 days) and those in standard 6th to 10th receive the meal on all school working days (220 days approximately).[9]