21 % Slump in takers for noon meal scheme in TN

CHENNAI: Attractive and nutritious food items might have been introduced in the Tamil Nadu government’s noon meal scheme. However, the number of beneficiaries has drastically reduced in the last five years with students’ enrolment decreasing by more than 20%.

Primary school children (5-9 years of age) and upper primary and high school children (10-15 years of age) are provided with nutritious meals along with masala eggs for 220 working days in a year.

A senior official from the Social Welfare Department explained to DT Next that in 2017-2018, over 53.31 lakh students had enrolled in the noon meal scheme, for which the State government had spent Rs 1,599.47 crore. “The following year, it decreased to 51.97 lakh with a further slump in 2019-2020 with a little over 49.85 lakh beneficiaries,” the official added.

According to government data, it has been downhill since. In 2020-2022, there were 48.57 lakh beneficiaries for the scheme, which plummeted further to almost 42.14 lakh in 2022-2023 — 21% decline when compared to 2017-2018 figures. “The reduction of beneficiaries over the last five years is more than 11 lakh,” claimed the official.

One of the major reasons could be the erasure of double entries from the beneficiary registry each year. “COVID-19 contributed to a large number of drop-outs in the government schools across the State. There could be multiple reasons behind the slump, but the final reason is yet to be concluded. Some students also opt out from the scheme when their family’s economic situation improves,” pointed out another official source.

The statistics from the government department revealed that there were not many changes in the numbers of anganwadi centres in the last five years. In 2017, there were 43,143 centres, which served noon meals to students. In 2022-2023, it stood at 43,176 centres.

Tamil Nadu is the first State in the country to introduce the noon meal scheme in 1962. Twenty years later, it was renamed as Puratchi Thalaivar MGR Nutritious Meal Programme (for children in 2-10 years in rural areas), and was also extended to students from classes 6-10. Egg was introduced in the scheme’s menu in 1989.