Mid day meal showing positive results in Maharashtra

Aurangabad, Apr 4 (ANI): Mid day meal schemes introduced by the Congress government for school going children is showing positive results in Aurangabad in Maharashtra.

In Aurangabad alone, the scheme is currently running in about 296 government aided schools.

Almost 24,411 students from the first to the fifth grade and 6025 students from the sixth to the eighth grade are the beneficiaries.

Special care is also being taken to provide wholesome food and ensure cleanliness while cooking.

The government also ensures that the provisions should reach the schools in time.

"As per the Mid day meal programme, we provide food to the students in the afternoon. There is a fixed menu. On Monday, it is dal and rice; on Tuesday, it is fried rice; on Wednesday, it is rice; on Friday, it is sweet rice and on Saturday, it is rice with egg or a banana. We take care of cleanliness while cooking the meals," said Ilyas Ahmed, headmaster, Khada Urdu primary School, one of the schools running the scheme.

The students are also happy with the quality of the food served to them.

"We get fried rice, pulses and rice everyday," said a student Khan Mohammed Osama of Khada Urdu Primary school.

"In my school, we get six different meals on six days," said Wasima Rida, another student.

The Mid day meal scheme has significantly helped improve enrolment and check drop out rates.

The scheme is running in about 179 schools private schools in the city as well serving 85,589 students.

Continuing since July 1995, it was introduced to address twin problems of checking drop rates in primary schools and providing nutrition to children coming from poor families.he National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (commonly known as Mid day meal scheme), one of the world's largest nutritional programmes, covers more than one million schools.he scheme provides a hot cooked meal of a minimum 300 calories and 8-12 grams of protein.

During the year 2008-09, around 10 million children at primary stage and 42 million children at upper primary stage are expected to be covered under the programme. By Abdul Hadi (ANI)