Now,midday meal to be provided to special school students

The Additional Director of MDMA,Santosh Rai,said: “We have received

the letter from the HRD ministry with the directives of providing midday meal by the end of month to students studying in special schools functional under the Labour department.”

“We have directed our officials at the concerning district levels to start providing midday meals in these schools at the earliest,” said Rai.

The scheme will be implemented in 46 districts across the state where these schools are functional. There are around 2,000 such primary schools functional across the state where around 1 lakh students are studying.

Functional under the Union Ministry of Labour,special schools ensure that children within the age group of 5 to 8 years are directly admitted to regular schools and the older working children are mainstreamed to formal education.

The children are provided education from Class I to V along with vocational training,monthly stipend,supplementary nutrition and regular health check ups so as to prepare them to join regular mainstream schools. “The move has been initiated as the Labour department was facing difficulty in providing the midday meal to the students in these schools. So,the HRD ministry issued the directives so that the scheme can be implemented without any problem,” said a senior state government official.