The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved the continuation of the PM POSHAN scheme in schools for five more years.

Under the latest approved scheme, one hot cooked meal will be provided to all school children studying in pre-primary to standard-VIII of government, and government-aided schools for the years 2021-22 to 2025-26. The CCEA decision on Wednesday extended the scheme to students studying in pre-primary or bal vatikas of government or government aided primary schools.

The earlier name of the scheme was ‘National Scheme for Mid-Day Meal in Schools’ popularly known as mid-day meal scheme. It covered about 11.80 crore children studying in 11.20 lakh schools across the country.

Mid-day meal scheme

Asked about the status of the mid-day meal scheme post today’s cabinet decision, Anurag Thakur, Minister of Information and Broadcasting, said that the scheme will get “subsumed” in PM POSHAN scheme

The CCEA approval on PM Poshan extends the duration of the scheme from financial year 2021-2022 to 2025-2026 with an outlay of ₹ 54,061.73 crore from the Centre and ₹31,733.17 crore from State governments and Union Territory administrations. An official statement said that the Centre will also bear an additional cost of about ₹45,000 crore on foodgrains. Therefore, the total scheme budget will amount to ₹1,30,794.90 crore.

“The scheme is proposed to be extended to students studying in pre-primary or bal vatikas of government and government-aided primary schools in addition to all the 11.80 crore children from elementary classes,” the statement said.

A special provision is also being made for providing supplementary nutrition items to children in aspirational districts and districts with high prevalence of anemia, the statement added.

The statement also said that the concept of Tithi Bhojan will be encouraged extensively. Tithi Bhojan is a community participation programme in which people provide special food to children on special occasions/festivals.

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