Chennai
The noon-meal scheme in Tamil Nadu, which feeds nutritious food for nearly 50 lakh government school students, is likely to have "bread" as a new menu, which would be served along with eggs.
Though there are more than 43,000 nutritious meal centres across the state that were not functioning due to the closure of schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic situation, dry rations were provided to the students for continuing the noon-meal scheme.
A senior official from the School Education Department, seeking anonymity, pointed out "since the schools were closed till now for about one and a half year, there were reports that the students from poor family background have turned as daily-wage labourers and there is also fear among the authorities that there might be several school dropouts".
"In this background, the authorities have suggested providing bread along with eggs, which is already being provided, so that the students get enough nutrition", he added.
The official said accordingly, the government is planning to tie up with Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) across all the districts to provide bread regularly for the children in the State-run schools.
"Bread will be provided along with the dry rations till the reopening of schools", he said adding "the number bread slices would be depending on the age of the students".
Stating that as normalcy is being restored from the coronavirus threat, the government is planning to re-open the schools in September, he said "once the schools were reopened, fresh bread will be optional for the students since they would get variety meals also".
He said at present government and government-aided school children studying from Class one to Class X were provided with hot cooked variety meals along with "masala" eggs on all school working days (220 days in a year). "There were also request from the government teachers that the noon-meal scheme could be extended for the students studying in Class XI and Class XII", he added.
"In 2020, as many as 48,56,783 school children were benefited by the nutritious meal scheme", he said adding "the previous AIADMK government was also planning to include regular breakfast for the children as a part of the noon-meal scheme".
Welcoming the idea to include "bread" in the noon-meal scheme, Tamil Nadu Teachers Association President P K Ilamaran said, "once the schools were reopened the distribution of bread to the children could be converted as breakfast scheme".
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