Uttarakhand pays Rs 38 cr to students under midday meal scheme; Pokhriyal lauds officials

Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' on Monday praised the Ministry's Midday Meal Scheme and called it a "great binding factor" to help in curbing the dropout rates in schools. Sharing a media report, the Union Minister said "happy to share that Uttarakhand" paid Rs 38 crores to students during lockdown under this scheme. The former Uttarakhand CM also praised the officials for implementing the scheme.

'Excellent work done by the officials'

According to the media report dated last week, Uttarakhand state School Education Department achieved a milestone of transferring over Rs 19.9 crore through the Direct Bank Transfer (DBT) and over Rs 19 crore payments to over 6 lakhs primary and secondary classes students under the mid-meal scheme in past five months.

The scheme caters to over 6 lakh students

According to the Education Department's latest data, over 6 lakh students are synced with the mid-day meal scheme in all the 13 districts and the lockdown had forced the state government to rework the strategy to reach out students, the report said.

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State secretary, School Education, Dr R Meenakshi Sundram speaking to 'Millenium Post', said, "Our department adopted both the option of cash payment and DBT for the mid-day meal procurement for the students by their parents during the lockdown. The random survey of the district level teams has revealed brilliant results at the micro-level across the 13 districts."

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As per the Central government norms, primary class students get Rs 114.31 and secondary class students get Rs 171.35 and in additional 2.3 kg rice for 23 days every month. The state has over 16,000 schools and the mid-day meal scheme caters to over 6 lakh students studying till class eight.

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