Mid-day meal to offer more variety to students

The mid-day meal programmes covers about 1.5 crore kids in the state. The state government recently hiked the convergence cost of the programme from Rs 2.69 to Rs 2.89 for primary school students and from Rs 4.03 to Rs 4.33 for students of upper primary schools.

According to officials,the increase in convergence cost gives them more options to offer variety in the menu. “Since we want to provide not just nutritious but also tasty food to the children which they can enjoy,we are now getting help from the experts to prepare a recipe book that will have 150 recipes,” Additional Director (UPMDMA) Santosh Kumar Rai told The Indian Express.

At present,children are served food items like roti and mix vegetables or dal with soyabean nuggets,rice with dal and mix seasonal vegetables,kheer and tehri. All this has to be cooked and has to be within the convergence cost as well as meet the required daily criterion of at least 12 and 20 gms of protein content for every student of primary and upper primary schools respectively.

To prepare the recipe book,the authority will be holding a competition at a college in Lucknow,where students of BSc and MSc Nutrition and Home Science will be invited to share their recipes. “We will tell them the convergence cost and also,give them a list of some popular regional foods from different parts of UP. They will have to look at these two factors while suggesting the recipe.”

The books will then be distributed to the schools which can follow these recipes. To check the quality and taste of these new recipes,the authority will take regular sample feedbacks from the students. “We aim at getting at least ten feedbacks from each block every fortnight. These feedbacks will be on a post card and collected by the district magistrates and the basic shiksha adhikaris,” said Rai.

The authority has launched a 24-hour toll-free helpline — 1800-419-0102 — where students,parents or anyone else can give their feedback as well as any complaint. “Action will have to be taken within two days and maximum of five days,” added Rai.