Mid-day meals back in Haryana schools

Ravinder Saini

Rohtak, June 12

Suspended in 2020 with the onset of Covid, mid-day meals are set to be cooked and served again at all government schools across Haryana from July 1 when classes resume after the summer break.

At present, dry ration is supplied to Class I-VIII students at their houses and they are paid cooking expenses too. A few schools had started serving meals on their own days before the vacation began. There are over 15 lakh students at more than 13,500 schools in the state who are served mid-day meals.

Sources said the decision to cook the mid-day meals again in all schools had been taken in view of the declining number of Covid cases. The matter had been discussed threadbare by the education higher-ups with the authorities concerned in the district administration, they said.

The Directorate of Elementary Education recently directed the District Elementary Education Officers to restore the facility in all schools from July 1. An Education Department official said the mid-day meal programme was aimed at addressing the issues of hunger and malnutrition as well as improving student enrolment, attendance and retention rates. The purpose of the scheme was getting defeated by serving dry ration, he said. Sushil Saini, Programme executive at Jhajjar, said the students were served sweet kheer, vegetable pulao, rice-rajma, kadhi-chawal, khichdi, halwa with black chana, roti and seasonal vegetables before the facility was discontinued in 2020.