The Gujarat government on Tuesday resumed the mid-day meal scheme in government and aided schools across nine urban centres, two years after it was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, an official said. Students in 29,464 primary schools will get mid-day meals from March 31 under the scheme, which was suspended on March 16, 2020 due to the pandemic, he said. State Education Minister Mr Jitu Vaghani relaunched the scheme from a government school in Gandhinagar, a government statement said.
The scheme will cover 7 lakh students in over 2,800 schools. Students of 29,464 schools in Gujarat will start getting mid-day meals from March 31, Mr Vaghani said. The state government has sanctioned Rs 1,071 crore for the PM POSHAN Scheme for 2022-23, he said. When schools were shut amid the pandemic, the state government had paid money to beneficiary families for the purchase food grains and towards cooking costs, he said.
The government had paid for more than 2.61 lakh tonnes of food grains and Rs 1,350 crore towards cooking costs under the food security allowance, the minister said. Mr Vaghani appealed to people to provide food to school students on special occasions such as birthdays and weddings. The minister further said that the state government will construct 10,000 classrooms out of the required number of 19,000 in schools across the state.
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