For the uninitiated, mid day meal scheme is a school meal program by the Government of India. It is created in order to provide nutrition and upgrade the nutritional standing of school-age children across entire India.

1. Who started the mid day meal
scheme?
For the uninitiated, mid day meal scheme is a school meal program by the Government
of India. It is created in order to provide nutrition and upgrade the nutritional standing of
school-age children across entire India. The mid day meal scheme provides free
lunches to underprivileged school on the regular working days of school for both primary
and upper primary classes. The students are from government schools, government-
aided schools, local bodies, Education Guarantee Scheme supported educational
institutes, alternate innovative education centers, Madarsa and Maqtabs, which are
supported under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, as well as National Child Labor Project
supported by the ministry of labor.
Mid day meal scheme is the largest of its kind in the world, serving 120,000,000 children in
over 1,265,000 schools, and the Education Guarantee Scheme centers across the
nation.
Under article 24, paragraph 2c of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, India being
a member of the party is committed to providing "adequate nutritious food" to the
children. Thus, as a part of this initiative, the Indian government started the mid day
meal scheme.
The origin of the mid day meal scheme can be traced back to a time of the pre-
independence era. In 1925, a mid day meal program was introduced by the British
administration in Madras Corporation based on the recommendation of MC Rajah,
Labor Advisory Board member. Later on, in 1930, the French administration introduced
the mid day meal program in the Union Territory of Puducherry.

2. Post-independence, the Tamil Nadu state government launched the mid day meal
program in primary schools for children during the 1962-63 school year.
You can say, Tamil Nadu is a pioneer in introducing mid day meal programs across
India, thereby increasing the number of student enrollment. The then Chief Minister of
Tamil Nadu launched the mid day meal program in Chennai and later on it expanded to
all districts of Tamil Nadu.
India is one of the nations fighting malnutrition for a long time and this mid day meal
scheme was introduced by the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, MG Ramachandran in
1982 to feed 68 lakh children with nutritious food, who suffer from malnutrition.
After Tamil Nadu, Gujrat is the second state to initiate the mid day meal scheme in
1984. However, later it was discontinued. In 1984, the same was introduced in Kerala.
By 1990-91, the mid day meal scheme was introduced in Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya
Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura,
and Uttar Pradesh. Karnataka, Orissa, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan.
In Karnataka, the mid day meal scheme was introduced at a later stage in 1997 by
Children's LoveCastles Trust.
Several states received international aid to help with implementation, while several were
funded entirely using foreign aid.
The mid day meal scheme eventually underwent changes and later on, on August 15,
1995, the government of India initiated the National Program of Nutritional Support to
Primary Education (NP-NSPE). Finally, in 2001, the Supreme Court passed an order
stating "A basic entitlement of every child in every Government and Government-

3. assisted Primary Schools with a prepared mid day meal with a minimum content of 300
calories and 8–12 grams of protein each day of school for a minimum of 200 days. "
Eventually, the secondary section was also introduced and the calories were also
revised. As for the primary section, each meal provides 12 grams of protein and 450
calories of energy and for the secondary section students, each meal provides 20
grams of protein and 700 calories of energy.
The government provides an amount for the initiative and the rest is taken care of by the
food NGOs or children NGOs in India. From cooking meals in high-tech kitchens to
delivering hot fresh food to the school children, all are looked after by the NGOs.

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