Today, most of the government schools, particularly in seven districts of Karnataka, provided eggs and bananas as part of the mid-day meal, to children from Classes 1 to 8. After a lot of debate, the government had announced that they will provide eggs from December 1, or give them bananas in case the students don't like to consume egg.
Manjunath Basingdar, a senior teacher at a Government High School in Yadgir district, said, "All the 100 students in our school have registered to consume eggs. So we had ordered a nearby shop to supply 100 eggs to the school. The department has told the government to purchase eggs and provide them three days a week. The officials will deposit the amount needed to purchase eggs and bananas in our respective school account. For now, the cost of egg and banana per child is Rs 6."
Similarly, students at Karnataka Public School in Hiresindhogi in Koppal district, Government higher primary school in Hyati village, and a lot of other schools have ensured to provide egg and banana to the students. The other districts that are covered under this scheme include Raichur, Bidar, Ballari, Kalaburagi, Vijayapura.
Meanwhile, Hanumanthappa Kuri, who is the cluster resource person for government schools in Koppal stated that the schools here have decided particular week days in coordination with the village panchayat and other stakeholders. "Egg is not consumed in every household on all the days. As per the instructions from the department, we have tried to be more sensitive and after taking inputs from the respective school heads, we have assigned different weekdays for the consumption of egg. We have also taken permission from the parents to provide eggs to the students who have registered themselves so that there is no politics played in the later days."
It must be recalled that the state was told to provide supplementary nutrition items in aspirational districts and those with high prevalence of malnutrition - districts where prevalence of anaemia is higher as per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS). From this December all the way through March 2022, as many as 14,44,322 children from seven districts will get an egg every day in their midday meals for 46 school days. The central government will bear the entire cost of the programme under its flexifund component. The cost is estimated to be Rs 3,953.14 lakh this year, as per officials from the education department.
