haya.Learning made clear
Midday meal programmes: Tamil Nadu and national (PM POSHAN) sheet
10-mark answer frame

Discuss the objectives and features of the midday meal programme in Tamil Nadu and India.

How to lay out the answer. Follow the frame, then write it in your own words.

  1. 1 · Open in two lines. The midday meal programme gives a free hot cooked meal to school children to improve nutrition, enrolment and learning. It was pioneered in Tamil Nadu and is now called PM POSHAN.
  2. 2 · State history.
    • 1925: Chennai city corporation schools.
    • Late 1950s: Kamaraj extends it statewide.
    • 1982: MGR's Nutritious Noon Meal Programme.
    • 2022: Chief Minister's Breakfast Scheme.
  3. 3 · Draw the national timeline. [Timeline: 1995 NP-NSPE → 2001 Supreme Court order → 2013 NFSA legal right → 2021 PM POSHAN]
  4. 4 · Objectives. Nutrition and classroom hunger, enrolment and attendance, learning, social equality, jobs for women.
  5. 5 · Features. Classes I-VIII and pre-primary; hot meal meeting set norms; Centre-state cost sharing; Tithi Bhojan; nutrition gardens; food security allowance.
  6. 6 · Problems and suggestions. Supply delays, hygiene, monotonous menus; SMC checks, social audit, better menu planning.
  7. 7 · In the community. Planning local, low-cost menus with millets, greens and pulses, and training cooks in hygiene.
  8. 8 · Close in one line. The school meal feeds the child today and keeps her in school for tomorrow.

Scoring tip: Give both the state and the national story; a short timeline earns marks quickly. Add one line separating PM POSHAN from POSHAN Abhiyaan.