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Dimapur, May 28 (EMN): Union minister for Education, Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ has approved the proposal to provide monetary assistance to 11.8 crore students (118 million students) through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) of the cooking cost component of the Mid-Day-Meal (MDM) scheme to all eligible children as a special welfare measure.
“This will give a fillip to the MDM programme. This is in addition to the government of India’s announcement of distribution of free-of-cost food grains at 5 kg per person per month to nearly 80 crore beneficiaries under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PM-GKAY),” a Press Information Bureau (PIB) report stated.
The report added that this decision would help safeguard the nutritional levels of children and aid in protecting their immunity during the challenging pandemic times.
It added that the central government would provide additional funds of about INR 1200 crore to state governments and Union Territory administrations for this purpose. The onetime special welfare measure of the union government would benefit about 11.8 crore children studying in class I to VIII in the 11.20 lakh government and government aided schools across the country, the report stated.
According to the government of Nagaland CM dashboard, there are 1,329 total schools as per the Mid Day Meal Automated Reporting Management System (MDM-ARMS). However, the schools have not reported and starting from May 22 to the 27, no MDM were served with zero enrolment.