Telangana to provide breakfast to school students from Class I to X Dussehra onwards

With the successful implementation of the breakfast scheme launched in Tamil Nadu, the Telangana government will follow suit with the programme and has decided to launch the Chief Minister's Breakfast Scheme for students from Class I to Class X from October 24, Dasara day, reports The New Indian Express.

The Chief Minister of the state K Chandrashekhar Rao made an announcement of the new scheme before the assembly elections and when the opposition party, Congress, readied itself to announce its six guarantees for Telangana on Sunday, September 17.

How will it be implemented?
It has been estimated that the annual additional expense on the exchequer will be around Rs 400 crore for implementing the scheme. It has also been announced that students will now get breakfast with the midday meals which is considered a welfare scheme rather than a free service.

After a team of IAS officers made a state visit to Tamil Nadu to understand the various nuances of the scheme, a report was submitted by the team to the state government. The officials later informed the CM that the breakfast scheme was only made available to students up to elementary school but the Telangana chief minister decided to implement it for high school students too in the state.

Several schemes launched
The CM has also launched various schemes and has been inaugurating development works before the Assembly polls. The BRS (Bharat Rashtra Samithi) government recently launched BC Bandhu, an enhanced Aasara pension for people with disabilities. The government also inaugurated nine new medical colleges on Friday, September 15 and the Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme will be inaugurated on Saturday, September 16.

After the announcement of the scheme, the School Education department issued a GO, where the School Education Secretary Vakati Karuna stated that it is the government's topmost priority to look after the welfare of women and children. It also added that the schemes have been launched to address the nutritional status of school-going children and also to alleviate the burden of working mothers, hence meals will be provided to school children studying from Classes I to X in government, local body schools and so on, on all school working days in the state.