13.6 lakh to get mid-day meal ration in Punjab

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, July 1

The Punjab State Mid-Day Meal Society, a wing of the School Education Department, on Wednesday directed district education officers (DEOs) to ensure that all 13.60 lakh primary and upper primary students be given dry ration and cooking cost in lieu of mid-day meal.

The DEOs have been told to distribute 7.50 kg of dry ration (wheat and rice) along with Rs 372 cooking cost to primary (Classes I to V) students and 11.25 kg ration along with Rs 558 as cooking cost to upper primary (Classes VI to VIII) students.

As all schools are closed due to the lockdown since March 22, most of them have already distributed dry ration and cooking cost for 25 days (up to April 15) to these students.

Every primary and upper primary student is entitled to 100 gm and 150 gm dry ration every day along with the cooking cost. Per day cooking cost for primary and upper primary student is Rs 4.97 and Rs 7.45, respectively.

The state government has told DEOs to tell schools to transfer the cooking cost to the bank accounts of these children, but earlier on April 15, schools had distributed cooking cost in cash with dry ration to parents of students.

Now with the directions of the state government to deposit the cooking cost in the bank accounts of students, a few teachers are raising questions over the government order, terming it a difficult job when the lockdown is in place and they are lacking safety gears. “When there are long queues in front of every bank, it is not practical to deposit Rs 372 or Rs 558 in the account of every student,” a teacher said.