Tamil Nadu expands free breakfast scheme to government, state-aided schools

NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin today launched the expanded breakfast scheme for the government-aided schools. The chief minister’s breakfast scheme will now benefit 2,23,536 primary school students studying in 3,995 government-aided schools across the state. The CM inaugurated the scheme at St Anne's school in Tiruvallur district.

With the expansion of the free breakfast scheme to aided schools, about 21.87 lakh students of Classes 1 to 5 in total will be benefitted. Also, the scheme will be operational in both government and state-aided primary schools.

Stalin informed on social media that he tracked the number of students being fed, after launching the breakfast programme. “After the expansion of the TN breakfast scheme, I tracked how many children were fed across Tamilnadu via the CM dashboard and felt satisfied that the hunger of the student wealth was satisfied!,” the minister said in a post in Tamil on X (formerly Twitter).

TN breakfast scheme

In August last year, the TN government expanded the breakfast scheme for school children to state-run primary schools. Over 31,000 government primary schools, across urban and rural Tamil Nadu, were brought under the scheme’s ambit benefiting around 18.50 lakh primary students. The minister had said that the breakfast scheme led to an increase in the attendance between 10-30 percent in primary schools.

The scheme was first launched on September 15, 2022 for government schools wherein 1.14 lakh students in Classes 1 to 5 studying in 1,545 government primary schools were given free breakfasts. The key objectives of the scheme, provided free of cost to children, are prevention of hunger and nutritional deficiency, ensuring enhancement of nutrients besides easing the burden of working women.

(with inputs from PTI)