The Uttar Pradesh Government has admitted in the State Assembly on Tuesday that 42 per cent school-going children were undernourished in the State and steps were being taken to provide nutritious food to these children. Primary Education Minister Ram Govind Chaudhury said in reply to a question of BJP member Radha Mohan Das Agarwal that medical check up of students were carried out twice in which 42 per cent students were found undernourished.
He said affected students were given vitamin and folic acid tablets. He said that between October and December this year, 7,602,900 students of 1,12,845 schools were given these tablets. “To address these undernourished children Government has set up Nourishment Mission which has started working in the identified districts,” he said.
However, the Minister could not reply reason of such a high rate of undernourished children and what kind of deficiency they are having. To another question the Minister said all the children were given free text books since 2005-06. When Dr laksmi Kant Bajpai (BJP) asked action Government had taken against those publishers who violate Government orders the Minister said till now there was no provision to blacklist them but from now
on the erring publishers will be black listed.