National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education commonly known as PM-POSHAN (formerly called the Mid Day Meal Programme) is a centrally sponsored scheme that was launched in the year 1995. The objective was to boost the universalisation of primary education.
The basic idea of the scheme was to provide nutritious food to primary students to rope in out-of-school children.
History of the Mid Day Meal Programme
• Mid Day Meals (MDM) have a long history that goes as back as 1925.
• By the mid of 1980s three states had started implementing this programme and by 1991, 12 states had followed the scheme. By 1998, the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) was introduced.
• By 2002, this MDM Scheme was extended to cover not just the primary students in government and government-aided schools but also to children studying in centres run under the Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS) and Alternative and Innovative Education (AIE).
• In November 2001, The Supreme Court of India instructed all State Governments to implement this programme within six months.
• In the year 2004, the scheme was revised to provide cooked meals with 300 calories and 8-12g of proteins to all children studying in classes I-V in Government and aided schools of India along with EGS and AIS centres.
How are mid day meals beneficial for children?
School plays an integral role in moulding children’s upbringing in the form of psychosocial and physical development. However, children coming from challenging backgrounds are forced to choose low-paying cheap labour over getting educated.
Hence, the below happens when you feed the children coming from low-income backgrounds:
• More number of children start enrolling and become regular in attending schools
• When children have meals together, they socialise with each other without the barriers of caste, income and religion
• It reduces classroom hunger, hence helping them concentrate on what is being attended in the class
• It gives them the energy to take part in extra-curricular activities or sports
• It nourishes them in the long run by taking care of micro and macro-nutrient requirements
• Studies have found that studying on a full stomach has better retention and recalling ability.
PM POSHAN Scheme
The centrally sponsored Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM-POSHAN, formerly called the Mid Day Meal Scheme) provides one hot cooked meal in Government and Government-aided schools from the year FY2021-22 till FY2025-26. The main objective of this programme is to address two pressing issues in India – hunger and education.
It is not very difficult to make a charity in India but it is necessary to know that the money you donate online really reaches its beneficiaries.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation is an NGO in India that implements this scheme and is recognised for running the world’s largest school-feeding programme. It started by running its school feeding programme by serving meals to 1,500 children from five schools in Bengaluru. Today, it has expanded to reach out to feed 1.8 million children from its centralised and decentralised kitchens.
Control measures by Akshaya Patra to ensure nutritious meals
The Akshaya Patra Foundation keeps a check on every critical point to ensure that only the choicest grains, vegetables and raw materials make way to the centralised and decentralised kitchens.
• Raw materials that are procured from the local market undergo a thorough process like the Supplier selection process, etc. that are a part of the SQMS.
• FIFO and FEFO methodologies are followed to ensure that the best quality vegetables are used
• The kitchen staff are trained continuously on GMP and GHP, safety and hygiene practices
• All the vessels, knives, boards, trolleys, chutes, etc. are sanitised and sterilised before use
• Standardised recipes are prepared so that there is no change in the nutritional value of the food
• Quality assurance programmes are implemented at all stages of operations – Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production.
• The cooked meals are cooked, packaged and transported to the beneficiary schools in insulated, honeycombed vans to avoid spillage.
Akshaya Patra is on a mission to serve meals to 5 million children by 2025 and is spread across 61 locations spread across 14 states and 2 union territories. Support this NGO in India to feed more beneficiaries to make the country a healthy and nourished one.
Together, we can make Zero Hunger possible.