2 days ago
Midday meals to feature high-quality rice in Tirupati dist: JC
Tirupati: Joint Collector Shubham Bansal announced that fine-quality rice (R&R variety) will be supplied to government schools and hostels across the district from Thursday aimed at enhancing the quality of the Midday Meal Scheme. This initiative aims to provide nutritious and hygienic food to children, ensuring better health outcomes and improved edu-cational participation.
As per government guidelines, the rice being supplied is of BPL-grade fine variety, packed in 25 kg bags. A total of 21,744 rice packets have already been dispatched across the district. Of these, 7,614 packets are being sent to 1,867 government schools, 9,400 packets to government hostels, 3,377 packets to ISKCON (Tirupati) for their midday meal programme, and 1,353 packets to the Akshaya Patra Foundation.
To ensure transparency and prevent misuse or diversion, each rice packet is embedded with a QR code. This allows real-time digital tracking of the rice from the MLS (Mandala Level Stock) points to the schools and hostels. Schools have also been instructed to thoroughly verify the QR codes on the packets before accepting the supplies. Under the guidance of the Chief Minister and the Minister for Civil Supplies, this programme is being rolled out as a model of quality as-surance in public food distribution. Joint Collector Bansal also high-lighted that for the first time in three years, the district has achieved the procurement of 95,000 metric tonnes of fine rice during the Kha-rif and Rabi seasons.
The rice is not only being supplied to Tirupati but also to other dis-tricts including Chittoor, Kadapa, Annamayya, Puttaparthi, Nellore, and Anantapur. He further informed that implementation efforts have been underway for the past 15 days.
