Shillong, Feb 21: Over 7 lakh students in Meghalaya are benefiting from the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN).

This was informed by the Director of Education & Literacy Swapnil Tembe after chairing the state level steering cum monitoring committee for the PM POSHAN scheme, which provides meals to students of classes I to VIII of government schools and government aided schools.

“Around 7 lakh students in the government and government aided schools are getting meals under this scheme,” Tembe told reporters.

He informed the total allocation was around Rs 130 crore last year and this includes all components like cook cum helper honorarium, the food cost, transportation cost etc.

Under the scheme, Tembe said over 80 per cent schools in Meghalaya now have school nutrition gardens for taking care of even as the government is targeting to achieve a hundred per cent mark this year.

“So I am happy to share that today after all efforts, schools having school nutrition gardens have increased from 9% to 80% and this year we plan to make it 100%,” he said.

Explaining further, the director said, “The school nutrition garden is like a kitchen garden where the children learn how to plant vegetables and fruits and then they care for them and then when they grow they pluck the vegetables and use them in their meals. Another facet of this is that the kitchen wastes are used back in the garden.”

He said as per school calendar, one bagless day has been dedicated to the school nutrition garden while informing that over 20,000 cook cum helpers besides school heads and teachers were also trained last year in collaboration with NESFAS about nutrition.

“We organized various cooking competitions also where these cook cum helpers participated and the most nutritious meals were awarded.”

Tembe however informed that the challenges faced while implementing the scheme is the non-availability of LPG cylinders and most are using firewoods for cooking meals.

“So this is something of a challenge to us and this year we want to spread more awareness on the use of a green fuel for cooking because when we use firewood of course there is lot of smoke and the kitchen is just next to the school building, so we don’t want that kind of thing, we want a green energy source to be used for our kitchens,” he said.

According to him, the government is making an effort to provide model kitchens to the schools.

Meanwhile, Tembe said the meeting has finalised the plan for next year.

“Hopefully, we will continue this part to improve the service delivery in this scheme,” he added.

Also Read: Committee set-up to ensure timely release of salary for schools

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