State is likely to resume serving cooked meals to government school students of classes 6 to 8 under the Mid Day Meal (MDM) scheme after a gap of almost two years, officials from the School Education and Literacy Department said on Thursday, adding that students of classes 1 to 5 will also be served freshly-cooked meals once in-person classes for them resume. 

The School Education and Literacy Department had recently sought a go-ahead from the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) for resuming the regular practice of providing cooked meals to eligible students at government schools under MDM, an official said, claiming that the concerned officials have verbally agreed to this request.

However, there was no official confirmation from the department in this regard.Schools have not served cooked meals under MDM to students since the imposition of Covid-induced lockdown in March 2020. Students are also provided eggs and fruits under this scheme in a bid to combat malnutrition, which is a major concern in Jharkhand. The government had decided to distribute dry ration among students during the lockdown, and a tender too was floated for the same.

However, the tenders were cancelled earlier this week.Meanwhile, the state is also likely to disburse a sum of over Rs.250 crore to the districts for distribution among eligible MDM beneficiaries as daily cooking cost for the period between October 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021 following questions raised by the Jharkhand State Food Commission on the non-payment of daily cooking cost to students during the lockdown. During the Covid-induced lockdown, the Government was directed to send the cooking costs of Mid-Day Meals to the account of the eligible beneficiaries in the form of direct benefit transfer.

Children in classes 1 to 5 were supposed to get Rs.4.97 per day, while those in classes 6 to 8 were supposed to get Rs.7.45 per day as cooking cost.

At least 32 lakh students, studying in classes 1 to 8 of government schools, are eligible for daily one-time-meal under the MDM scheme in Jharkhand. Right to Food activists in the state have also raised questions on the lack of efforts made by the government to ensure nutritional meals to MDM beneficiaries during the lockdown. 

Around 120 million students in the country are served food under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan’s Mid-Day Meal scheme, said to be the biggest such government-sponsored programme in the world.