After a gap of more than two years, the Punjab School Education Department on Thursday announced to increase the cooking cost per child by 9.6 per cent under the PM-POSHAN scheme — earlier known as Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme — in all government and government-aided schools. The increased rates will come into effect from November 1.
After the increase in rates, the cooking cost per child in primary classes — that is for Classes I to V — has been increased from Rs 4.97 to Rs 5.45, while there is an increase from Rs 7.45 to Rs 8.17 per child for the upper primary (VI-VIII) classes.
The letter to this effect has been written by the Punjab State Mid-Day Meal Society’s general manager to all District Education Officers — senior secondary and elementary — in the state, besides conveying the same to all the school heads via website.
The cooking cost under the scheme involves purchase of cooking oil, pulses, vegetables, and condiments. Under the national programme, 60 per cent of the cooking cost is shared by the Centre while 40 per cent by the State Government.
Before this, the State Government had revised the cooking cost for MDM in May 2020 — increasing it by 11 per cent from Rs 4.48 to Rs 4.97 for primary classes and Rs 6.71 to Rs 7.45 for upper primary classes.
The Midday Meal Scheme is a school meal programme in India designed to better the nutritional standing of school-age children nationwide. The programme supplies free lunches on working days for children in primary and upper primary classes in government and government aided schools.
Under the scheme, one meal is guaranteed for at least 200 days in a year to about 17 lakh students in government, government-aided primary and elementary schools in the State under the Samagra Shiksha —a programme of the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development.
No less than 42,000 workers-cum-helpers in 19,680 government and government-aided schools in the state are engaged in preparing the mid-day meal.