Minister Ganta Srinivas inaugurates Mid-day meals scheme

Visakhapatnam, Aug 02: In a significant development, The Mid-day meals scheme was launched on Wednesday in government junior colleges across Andhra Pradesh which will benefit 1.74 lakh students from 450 government junior colleges.

Inaugurating the programme at the Government women's junior college in the heart of the city here, HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao said till now midday meal scheme was available only for students from class 1 to 10 of Government schools.

"But today, we extended it to 450 government junior colleges for both Intermediate first and second year. In Visakhapatnam district, about 16,025 students of 36 colleges will benefit from the scheme," he said.

The scheme, aimed at reducing dropouts, improve results and preventing malnutrition among students, was showing good results, he stated and hoped that it would have the same effect at the junior college level also. The Minister disclosed that it was estimated that the government would incur Rs 56.53 crore for extending the scheme to junior colleges and Rs.23 crore was sanctioned as the first installment.

Despite the State facing a revenue deficit of Rs 16,000 crore, the government was allocating Rs 25,000 crore every year for education and providing facilities in government schools and colleges on part with corporate educational institutions.