Food for better education: TN govt spending Rs 12.75 a day on every child

Govt plans to expand the scheme to 30,122 more government primary schools from the next academic year

Way back in 1920, the idea of mid-day meals at schools in Tamil Nadu was initiated by the Justice Party, widely considered to have ushered in the Dravidian movement. It was introduced in one corporation school in the Thousand Lights area in Chennai then. Later, after independence, the Midday Meal Scheme was rolled out in 1957 in Tamil Nadu by then chief minister K Kamaraj.

However, the scheme had to wait several decades — till 2002 — to become nationwide. It happened only after the Supreme Court made it mandatory for states. The scheme was renamed PM Poshan in 2021.