Vaish, Anshu
(2018)
National programme of mid-day meals in schools.
Learning Curve (30).
pp. 27-32.
Abstract
The National Food Security Act, 2013 lays down
the legal entitlement of every school child up to
the age of fourteen years to a free, cooked, hot
midday meal in all schools either run or aided by
the government or local bodies and prescribes
nutritional standards required to be met. Before
this, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory
Education Act, 2009 had mandated the provision of
a kitchen in every school, where the midday meal
would be cooked. But the seed of midday meals
in school had been sown nearly a century ago and
evolved through successive avatars before it was
given legislative status as a crucial tool for children’s
food security.In 1925, Madras Municipal Corporation began to
provide the disadvantaged children in its schools a
midday meal (MDM). This was later extended across
Tamil Nadu. Gujarat and Kerala soon followed suit.
By the middle of the 1980s, these three states as
well as the Union Territory (UT) of Pondicherry had
universalised, with their own resources, a midday
meal programme for children studying in primary
schools. By 1990, the number of states using their
own funds to run significant MDM programmes
had risen to twelve.
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