Schools to open today with delicious breakfast awaiting students

Government schools across Telangana will reopen today after an extended summer vacation, with lakhs of students returning to classrooms with sumptuous breakfast and milk awaiting them.

This year’s reopening was delayed by a few days due to intense heatwave conditions across the State, but adding to the excitement is the government’s ambitious breakfast programme, under which nutritious morning meals and milk will be provided.

All arrangements for the breakfast scheme have been completed, with the first phase covering 1,302 educational institutions, including 1,269 schools and 33 government junior colleges.

Under the scheme, a total of 1.44 lakh students will be provided with a nutritious breakfast six days a week. It will be extended to all government schools and junior colleges in a phased manner during the current academic year through a network of centralised kitchens.

Two voluntary organisations, the Hare Krishna Movement Charitable Trust and Manna Trust, will implement the breakfast programme in the first phase across eight districts.

The Hare Krishna Movement Charitable Trust will provide breakfast to 1.03 lakh students studying in 1,162 government schools in six districts. Additionally, 10,000 students enrolled in 21 government junior colleges in four districts will also receive breakfast under the programme.

The Manna Trust will serve breakfast to over 26,000 students studying in 107 government schools in Hyderabad and Medchal-Malkajgiri districts. The programme will also benefit 4,000 odd students in 12 government junior colleges in these two districts.

Junior colleges have been brought into meals system for the first time. It will be launched in 33 government junior colleges from Monday. Telangana has 430 government junior colleges with nearly 1.7 lakh students enrolled.

The breakfast programme will ultimately benefit nearly 22 lakh students. The government has earmarked ₹720 crore annually for the scheme, including ₹540 crore for breakfast and ₹180 crore for milk distribution. An additional ₹56 crore has been allocated specifically for Intermediate students.

As part of the nutrition plan, students will be served milk on three days each week and ragi java on the remaining three days. The menu will change throughout the week, consisting of dosas, millet idlis, puris, bondas and upma along with chutney or sambar.