Odisha government is contemplating to involve nearly 50 charitable institutions to dish qualitative free noon meal

Bhubaneswar:6/9/17: Odisha government is contemplating to involve nearly 50 charitable institutions to dish qualitative free noon meal to school children.

Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi, who reviewed the school kitchen projects, said “centralized school kitchen has tasted grand success with the involvement of charitable and social organizations. At present seven centralized kitchens are in operation in state’s major cities. It is covering 3.26 school children. The organizations which is providing food to children through centralized cooking are doing excellent work”.

45 such charitable organizations have evinced keen interest in undertaking centralized kitchen to serve nutritious noon meal to school children. We are planning to expand the scheme to other areas through active support of charitable bodies, he said.

The state has 58,214 schools which are are being covered under MDM while 47 lakh children are reaping benefit of the scheme. The school kitchens are complete in 42,000 schools. Steps are on complete the rest 16,000 schools kitchens and Rs 1.20 lakh monetary sanction has already been made for each of the kitchen projects, he said.

We have set December 31 deadline for completion of incomplete school kitchens. The Schools and Mass Education Department has been issued direction in this regard to meet with deadline, he said.

The need of the hour is however to expand the base of centralized kitchen through SHG groups and charitable institutions.

The department needs to verify the financial and professional credentials of the organizations before entrusting them with MDM, he added.