More than two lakh children from the government and aided schools across Mysuru district will avail supplementary diet of eggs, chikki, or banana under the midday meal scheme with the launch of the initiative here on Monday.
Minister in-charge of Mysuru district H.C. Mahadevappa, who inaugurated the programme here by feeding eggs, chikki, and banana to children at Maharaja Government High School, said a nutritious diet for children will make them healthy and strong.
Recalling his childhood days, the Minister said there were times when three meals a day was not assured. “We used to eat ragi mudde with salt and chilli. Today, none should starve as the vision is to build a hunger-free society. With this objective in mind, the government has launched various schemes,” he told the gathering.
Last year, the supplementary diet was provided to the children of classes 1 to 8 for 46 days a year. However, the Congress government decided to provide the benefit to the children of classes 1 to 10 for 80 days a year, he said.
Mysuru district has 2,228 schools, including 2,070 government schools and 258 aided schools. In total, 2,12,646 students, including 1,65,794 children from government schools and 46,852 children from aided schools will get either egg, banana, or chikki twice a week, he stated.
Dr. Mahadevappa said the government was spending a sum of ₹480 a year (80 days) on each student for providing the supplementary diet. Around ₹6 was being spent on each student and ₹10,20,70,080 was spent alone on this programme, he told the audience.
The Minister advised teachers to help children develop life skills.
Former Minister and MLA Tanveer Sait and others were present.
A note from the Mysuru Zilla Panchayat office said 84.72 percent children have opted to eat boiled eggs while 8.91 percent children will eat bananas and 6.36 children will be eating peanut chikki in schools where the diet will be provided. So, the highest number of children would be consuming boiled eggs that are provided twice a week to 1,66,457 students.
