The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Watching calories in midday meal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 10, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Watching calories in midday meal

Staff Reporter

Bio-intensive gardens to be developed around schools

Akshara Dasoha kitchens have to display charts with details of nutritional content of each meal
Vegetables grown in gardens cannot be sold

Bangalore: Faced with the criticism that midday meals served in government and aided schools concentrate more on quantity than quality, the Education Department has decided to keep a close watch on the nutritional content of food served.

The Directorate of Public Instruction has stepped up its plan on developing bio-intensive gardens around schools by releasing a grant of Rs. 43 lakh to implement it, besides sending circulars to all schools that Akshara Dasoha kitchens have to display charts with details on the nutritional content of each meal served. According to the chart, each child in a primary school should get 491 calories from each meal and a child in high school should get 728.35 calories. Rice, dal, vegetables and oil will add up to this calorie count.

Weight

“We are also asking them display the weight of cooked food. This will keep the children and the community informed about what is being served in the midday meal,” said G. Kumar Naik, Commissioner of Public Instruction. This will help the parents and the community to ensure that the calorie standards are being met in each school, he added.

The department is also stepping its efforts on developing bio-intensive gardens in schools.

In the first phase, such gardens are being developed in schools that have adequate space and water resource. High-yielding varieties of vegetables such as brinjal, drumstick and curry leaves will be grown here and used in cooking the midday meals.

Making vegetables available in the school’s backyard, said Mr. Naik, was the best way of ensuring that children got adequate and fresh vegetables in their meals, said Mr. Naik.

Children, staff and the community at large will participate in maintaining the garden.

The overall responsibility of maintenance will rest with the School Development and Monitoring Committees.

The space allotted for the school, barring the land taken up by the building and playground, will be turned into gardens.

There are strict instructions that vegetables grown here cannot be sold.

The Karnataka Government introduced the midday meal scheme in June 2002 in seven backward districts.

The programme was later extended to all government and aided schools, covering close to 60 lakh children.

The government extended the scheme to high schools too in the last budget.

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