The Tamil Nadu government will soon provide free breakfast for students of Classes I to V in government schools, Chief Minister MK Stalin said on Wednesday, July 27.
At a function held in a government school in Chennai, CM Stalin shared with the students that as they are coming to the school in a hurry in the morning skipping breakfast, the government has decided to provide breakfast in the government schools, as stated in a report by IANS.
Among other objectives, the scheme aims to ensure that students do not suffer from malnutrition, to raise their nutritional status and to increase/retain the attendance of students in schools, according to the guidelines of the breakfast scheme. The guidelines also included a detailed menu for the breakfast for each day of the week.
Stalin said the government order for this project was signed by him on Tuesday, July 26, as per IANS. It may be recalled it was Tamil Nadu that first started to provide midday meals to government school students. He added that mental and body health are both important for students and if there is self-confidence then studies will not be a problem.
The free breakfast scheme was earlier launched in May on a trial basis at schools in 292 village panchayats across 15 districts, as reported by The New Indian Express. The scheme was finalised based on a public health study on the alarming trends of malnourished children in the State, the report said. It was one of the schemes that was announced by the CM to mark the completion of one year of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government, it added.
