Allocation for mid-day meal schemes for school children has been raised to Rs 3,010 crore (Rs 30.10 billion) for the coming fiscal from Rs 1,675 crore (Rs 16.75 billion) in 2004-05, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Monday.
At present, 11 crore (110 million) children are being covered under the scheme and the Centre is now providing the cost of food grains as well as the conversion cost at the rate of Re 1 per child, Chidambaram said while presenting the Union Budget.
To meet the objective of universalising the Integrated Child Development Scheme, he proposed to expand the programme and create 1,88,168 additional Anganwadi centres across the country. At present, there are 6,49,000 such centres.
Chidambaram said the allocation for ICDS is proposed to be increased from Rs 1,623 crore (Rs 16.23 billion) in 2004-05 to Rs 3,142 crore (Rs 31.42 billion) in the Budget proposals for the coming fiscal.'
Stating that 47 per cent of children in the age group of 0-3 years are underwieght and supplementary nutrition is an integral part of ICDS, the finance minister also proposed to double the supplementary nutrition norms and share one-half of the states' cost for this purpose.