Advani launches mid-day meal in Jodhpur

Jodhpur, Nov 5: Senior BJP leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani today formally launched 'Annapurna', the mid-day meal scheme, which will benefit 65,000 children of government and aided primary schools in the city.

Mr Advani, while launching the scheme-- run by a Bangalore-based NGO 'Adamya Chetana'-- said he was pleased about the cooperation between the cities of Jodhpur and Bangalore, with whom he had developed unforgettable links. He said he had spent a month in this town after he left Karachi during partition and Banglore was almost his second home where he had spent 19 months in prison during emergency.

Rajastahan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and several of her senior cabinet colleagues witnessed the event at Sir Pratap School, where a centralised kitchen has been set up to prepare meals, before it is transported to be served to the school children.

Adamya Chetana has been running the mid-day meal scheme reaching out to 72,000 children in Bangalore and 48,000 in Hubli, the second biggest town of Karnataka, in over 430 schools every day.

Applauding the scheme, Mrs Raje said she was sure that the south-north cooperation between Bangalore and Jodhpur will be a long-term cooperation.

''Children are our precious wealth and we bow to the people who take care of our children with love and affection,'' the Chief Minister said, hailing the participation of the NGOs.

Suggesting the introduction of health insurance scheme, where every child will be insured for every possible disease, with the government and the NGO bearing one Rupee premium on each child, she said ''good practices and inventions need to be replicated''.

This scheme can be a success with the help and cooperation from all, she added.

Trustees of the Annapoorna Scheme Tejaswini Ananth Kumar and Suparna Diwakar said the government will provide 100 grams of food grains (wheat and rice) and a cash component of Rs two per child.

The NGO has to buy vegetables, oil, salt, pulses and cook and supply the food to the schools between 1230 and 1400 hrs. The whole process involves the labour of about 70 to 80 cooks, cleaners, and so on besides transportion of the food.

The NGO's experience of running the scheme in Karnataka comes handy for making the scheme a success. The NGO is making chapatis manually as well as with machines and use local vegetables and prepare the food to suit local taste buds. The quality, quantity and timely supply of food is monitored by 'Matru Samitis', comprising parents of the school children. There were also a team of volunteers who visit the schools and provide feed back to the authorities and the NGO.

The NGO also plans to carry out health survey of children and correlate it later to analyse the effect of mid-day meal programme on health and education of the child. In Karnataka, the comparative data one year after the scheme was introduced, showed that there were about 45 heart-releated problems basically caused by anaemia in 2003. The 2004 survey showed five congenital heart-related but no anemia-related cases, Mrs Diwakar said.

BJP MP and former Union Minister Ananth Kumar and his Hubli counterpart Prahlad Joshi also participated in the event.

UNI