Ministry approves State Govt's proposal for 2018-19 mid day meal programme
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, May 30 2018:
The proposal sent by the State Government to Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry for providing mid day meals to 1,55,574 children for the year 2018-19, has been approved by the Ministry.
According to a source from the Department of Education (S), Manipur, the proposal sent by the State Government was approved by the Ministry's Programme Approval Board recently.
It explained that out of the total 1,55,574 children for whom the mid day meal proposal was approved by the board, 1,21,595 are for primary while 33,979 are for upper primary.
The source continued that mid day meals will be provided to the said children for a total number of 227 days for which a budget of around Rs 25.75 crore has been estimated.
Out of the said budget, the State Government will produce Rs 2.5 crore as the State's share while the remaining amount will be borne by the Central Government, the source added.
It also explained that it has been calculated that around Rs 11.40 crore will be needed to provide mid day meals to 1,21,595 children of primary level for 227 days while Rs 4.77 crore will be required to provide mid day meals for the remaining 33,979 children of upper primary level for the same duration.
Out of the total calculated budget of Rs 25.75 crore, Rs 6.7 crore will be used for paying the honorarium of the mid day meal cooks, Rs 1.7 crore will be used as transportation charges of the rice and other items required for the preparation of the mid day meals and Rs 1.198 crore will be used for procuring rice.
The source informed that the validity for procuring the Aadhaar cards of the children covered by the mid day meal schemes is almost finished but it is still pending in the hill districts.
It claimed that while taking the Aadhaar cards of the students, the number of students drastically declined and the trend may continue in the hill areas as well.
On the other hand, the source pointed out that the enrolment rate of students in Government schools has seen an increase and as such, if the number of children/students increase more than the number approved by the Ministry board, a new proposal will be sent again.