Nutritious Dasara gift for govt school students in Telangana

Free breakfast to be served as part of flagship scheme 'Mukhyamantri Alpahara'

Hyderabad: From nutritious Millet ‘rava khichdi’ along with piping hot ‘sambar’, scrumptious ‘rava pongal’ and ‘sambar’ to wheat ‘rava khichdi’ and ‘chutney’, the School Education Department has proposed a day-wise menu for free breakfast to be served to government school students as part of State government’s flagship scheme ‘Chief Minister’s Breakfast’ (Mukhyamantri Alpahara).

The breakfast will be prepared at the school and served steaming hot to students before the morning prayer i.e. 9.30 am. To be launched as a Dasara gift to students on October 24, the breakfast scheme will benefit a staggering 23,05,801 students in 28,807 schools – Government and Local Body, Aided, Model Schools and Madrasas – operating under the department.

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To address the nutritional status of schoolgoing children besides alleviating the burden of working mothers, the State government announced free breakfast to Class I to X students, and thereby increase their academic performance.

Earlier, the government launched Ragi Java to students of government and local body schools. The millet-based supplement mixed with jaggery is being served on every alternate day to primary and upper primary students.

The government has already been extending free mid-day meals to government and local body school children. Fine rice, dal, sambar, vegetable curry, legume vegetable curry and special rice like vegetable biryani, ‘bagara’ rice and ‘pulihora’ are food varieties that are served to students as part of the meal.

Making the meal more protein rich, the government included eggs, which are provided to students thrice a week in the mid-day meal. The Central and State governments share the expenditure on the mid-day meal served to classes I to VIII students in 60:40 ratio. However, the State government alone bears the meal cost for classes IX and X students along with egg cost for classes I to X students.