The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has announced that the annual central allocation towards cooking cost (for procurement of pulses, vegetable, oil, spices and fuel) under the Mid-Day Meal Scheme has been enhanced to ₹8, 100 crore from ₹7,300 crore in the wake of Covid-19.

“Approval is also being given for providing mid-day meal during the summer holidays of schools, on which an additional expenditure of about ₹1,600 crores will be made. In addition, under the Mid-Day Meal Scheme, an Ad-hoc grant of ₹2,500 crore is being issued for the first quarter,” said Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Human Resource Development Minister.

Pokhriyal along with Minister of State for HRD, Sanjay Dhotre interacted with Education Ministers and Education Secretaries of all the States through video conferencing on Tuesday.

Education Ministers of 22 states and secretaries from 14 States and Union Territories attended the conference. Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy Anita Karwal and other senior officials of the Ministry also participated in the meeting.

Pokhriyal also appealed to all the states to start the process of evaluation of answer sheets of board exams and facilitate the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to evaluate answer sheets of the students in their respective states. Earlier, this month, the government had announced that CBSE would conduct pending exams for class 10 and 12 only in 29 subjects. The dates for the remaining exams are yet to be announced.

Pokhriyal also said that the states where Kendriya Vidyalaya and Navodaya Vidyalaya are approved but could not be started due to lack of land or running on less capacity, are requested to transfer the land quickly so that the children of the state can get benefit from it.

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