KARGIL, SEPTEMBER 30, 2021: Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the continuation of the national scheme of PM POSHAN in Schools for the five-year period from 2021-22 to 2025-26 with the financial outlay of ₹ 54061.73 crores from the Central Government and ₹ 31733.17 crore from State Governments & UT administrations, announced a press release by Ministry of Education.

Central Government will also bear the additional cost of about ₹ 45000 crore on food grains. Therefore, the total scheme budget will amount to ₹ 130794.90 crore, the press release maintained.

The CCEA cleared the PM POSHAN (Poshan Shakti Nirman) Scheme for providing one hot cooked meal in Government and Government-aided schools from 2021-22 to 2025-26, earlier known as ‘National Programme for Mid-Day Meal in Schools’ popularly known as Mid-Day Meal Scheme. This is a Centrally-Sponsored Scheme which covers all school children studying in Classes I-VIII in Government, Government-Aided Schools.

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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 ₹ 24,400 crore in the scheme, including cost of about ₹ 11,500 crore on food grains.

The scheme is proposed to be extended to students studying in pre-primary or Balvatikas in Government and Government-aided primary schools in addition to all the 11.80 crore children from elementary classes.

The concept of Tithi Bhojan will be encouraged extensively, which is a community participation programme in which people provide special food to children on special occasions/festivals.

The Government is promoting development of School Nutrition Gardens in schools to give children first-hand experience with nature and gardening. The harvest of these gardens is used in the scheme providing additional micro nutrients. School Nutrition Gardens have already been developed in more than 3 lakh schools. In addition, Social Audit of the scheme is made mandatory in all the districts.

Special provision is also made for providing supplementary nutrition items to children in aspirational districts and districts with high prevalence of Anemia.

The press release further informed that cooking competitions will be encouraged at all levels right from village level to national level to promote ethnic cuisine and innovative menus based on locally available ingredients and vegetables.

Vocal for Local for Atmanirbhar Bharat: Involvement of Farmers Producer Organizations (FPO) and Women Self Help Groups in implementation of the scheme will be encouraged. Use of locally grown traditional food items for a fillip to local economic growth will be encouraged.

Field visits for progress monitoring and inspections will be facilitated for students of eminent Universities / Institutions and also trainee teachers of Regional Institutes of Educations (RIE) and District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET).