Nagapattinam: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K.Stalin on Friday launched the expansion of the Chief Minister’s free breakfast scheme to the students of all government primary schools across the state.
Inaugurating the flagship programme at Panchayat Union Middle School in Thirukkuvalai in this district, Mr.Stalin served the food to the students and also had breakfast with them.
The scheme aimed at providing a variety of nutritious meals to over 17,000 students from Classes 1 to 5 studying in 31,008 government primary schools across rural and urban areas at a cost of Rs 404.41 crores.
Speaking on the occasion, the CM said this is the first of its kind in the country to encourage the economically disadvantaged students to attend school without hunger, to increase the attendance and retention of children in schools, reduce the incidence of malnutrition among children and to decrease the burden of working mothers.
He said a survey conducted among ten lakh children of less than six years of age in urban areas to check their nutritional status, which revealed that nearly 92,000 were malnourished. The government provided nutrient supplements to them after which 62,000 children recovered from malnutrition.
Though the state government has been implementing many welfare schemes, the breakfast scheme gives immense satisfaction to him as it is aimed at eradicating hunger, malnutrition and anaemia among school-going children, Stalin added.
