Amid row, Suvendu says Bengal government to provide eggs with ISKCON-cooked veg food in mid-day meals

While presenting the BJP government’s first budget in the Assembly, Finance Minister Swapan Dasgupta had announced the overhaul, significantly raising the material allocation per student and partnering with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) to serve purely vegetarian meals in Kolkata schools as a pilot project. This led to a controversy, with the Opposition alleging that the government was promoting vegetarian food and depriving the students of protein.

Defending the decision in the Assembly, Adhikari had said, “We are giving the responsibility of cooking mid-day meals to ISKCON. ISKCON will cook food. If you have an objection, do not say ‘Hare Krishna’; no one will force you to do that. You will get good food to eat. You will get to eat pure food, nothing to worry about.”

Recently, the chief minister highlighted that allotment for each student even in the primary section for mid day meals has been increased to Rs 10 and that monthly wages for workers engaged with mid day meals in schools has been hiked from Rs 2000 to Rs 3000.

Meanwhile, Adhikari also announced a composite grant to schools in Bengal, after three years.

“The previous government deprived the schools of this valuable grant for the last three years. In this scheme, the Centre gives 60% of the funds and the state government gives 40%. Today, we gave Rs 296.64 crore to over 80,000 schools in the state. This will be helpful to the students. Since we have implemented the 2020 National Education Policy (NEP) we will benefit from central schemes,” Adhikari said.

The chief minister also stated that digital learning will be promoted in over 1200 schools in the state.

“In higher secondary schools we are including basic learning of Artificial Intelligence. We are also trying to go for audio visual learning in the schools,” he added.