Hummingbird News Desk
NEW DELHI, 29 SEP: The Union cabinet on Wednesday renamed the flagship school meal programme Mid-Day Meal as PM Poshan and pegged a total outlay of Rs 1.31 trillion, including states’ share over five years.
PM Poshan has also expanded the scope of the school mid-day meal programme to include preschool students in government and government-aided schools. In addition, the cabinet decided to pay a monthly honorarium to almost 2.5 million support staff via direct benefit of transfer (DBT).
“The government has brought in some structural changes in scheme. While the scope has been extended by bringing preschools under its ambit, we are pushing for direct benefit of transfer to plug leakage,” education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said.
“Overall, the scheme has an expenditure of Rs 1.31 trillion (including both central and state share) over five years. To improve nutritional status, encourage education and learning, increase enrolments in schools and promote the overall growth of children, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the PM Poshan scheme,” Pradhan said.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by the Prime Minister has approved the continuation of ‘National Scheme for PM POSHAN in Schools’ for the five year period 2021-22 to 2025-26 with the financial outlay of Rs 54061.73 crores from the Central Government and Rs 31,733.17 crore from State Governments & UT administrations. Central Government will also bear additional cost of about Rs 45,000 crore on food grains. Therefore, the total scheme budget will amount to Rs 1,30,794.90 crore.
Today the CCEA cleared the PM POSHAN Scheme for providing one hot cooked meal in Government and Government-aided schools from 2021-22 to 2025-26.
The scheme covers about 11.80 crore children studying in 11.20 lakh schools across the country. During 2020-21, Government of India invested more than Rs 24,400 crore in the scheme, including cost of about Rs 11,500 crore on foodgrains.
Tags: #MidDayMeal #PMPoshan #DBT
