Mid Day Meal
Punjab
CONTACT
Tel: 91-172-2623106
91-172-2623206
Fax: 91-172-2624687
Email: ssa.punjab@yahoo.co.in

Mid-Day-Meal Scheme

Education plays a vital and important role in fulfilling the basic needs of a common man viz. food, shelter and clothing. The main aim of Education is to prepare and develop the child physically, mentally and spiritually to lead a quality life. Education is a process through which a child is made capable to attain the necessary competencies and skills to face the challenges in life to survive, and to make struggle for existence. Four important factors are identified for achieving the goal of Education for all. These are Access to Education, Enrolment of children, and Retention of the enrolled children and Achievement. Mid Day Meal scheme is an effort to achieve and facilitate all the four above said objectives.

Various schemes were implemented in the primary education sector by the Government to reach the disadvantaged population. Access to Primary Education was universalized through flagship programmes of Govt. like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, however, despite this, a few children are still deprived of Primary Education due to inability of their parents to send them to schools because of their poor economical status. For, these parents, sending their children to school means not only incurring extra financial burden but also depriving them of some money which their children would have earned otherwise by doing labour. That being the attitude of these economically backward parents, one may, perhaps, to motivate the parents and children was to bring their children to school by providing food and nutritional needs.

Government of India, on Oct 2nd 1995, launched the scheme of National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education also known as Mid-Day-Meal Programme. Under this scheme, students of Primary classes were to be provided wheat @ 3 kg per student per month (for 10 months in a year) subject to 80% attendance. Meanwhile, the apex court also intervened and vide its orders dated 28th November, 2001 the Supreme Court directed to the State Government/Union Territories to implement the Mid-Day-Meal scheme by providing every child in every Government and Government Assisted primary schools with a prepared Mid-Day-Meal with minimum contents of 300 calories of energy and 8-12 grams of protein each day of school for a minimum of 200 days.