Telengana government extends mid-day meal scheme to govt junior and degree colleges

Students of government junior colleges and degree colleges in Telengana will be served mid-day meal from this academic year. This will provide the opportunity to reduce the rate of drop-out along with providing nutritional support to the children. The announcement was made on July 17.

As of now, the mid-day meals are being provided only for students in government schools, now the same being extended to the college as well.

The idea came from the example set by former Minister C Laxma Reddy and a government college lecturer Raghuram from Jedcherla. They were providing mid-day meals to the students of a junior college called Jedcherla Government Junior College, situated 80 km away from Hyderabad.They were spending their own money for the initiative.

When this duo met the Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao(KCR) to discuss setting up of a botanical garden in their college, the CM got to know about their altruism. That influenced him and he adopted it on a large scale across the state.

The chief minister also instructed officials to take Jedcherla Degree College as an inspiration and set up botanical gardens in all government degree colleges in the state.

Mid-day Meal Scheme

The Mid-day Meal Scheme is a school meal initiative of the Government of India designed to increase the nutritional support to the school-going children. Under this program, free lunch is provided by the government in primary, upper primary classes in government, government-aided, local body schools. It was launched in the year 1995 and is the largest of its kind in the world. This scheme is administered by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.