Protein-rich food on anvil for veg students in Odisha schools

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Nov 13:

The Odisha government is considering inclusion of more protein-rich food for vegetarian students under the mid-day meal (MDM) scheme.

“Apart from providing potato, apples and bananas to vegetarian students, efforts are on to add more protein and calorie-rich food to them. A final decision on this would be taken after reviewing the ongoing MDM schemes in other states,” said School and Mass Education minister Debi Prasad Mishra, while inaugurating the three-day state level children’s festival—Surabhi-2014 at the Unit-IX Boys High School premises here on Wednesday.

The minister, in his address, said each child has creativity. Since it is not always possible for a student to exhibit his/her creativity in small premises, the government is planning to incorporate creativity as one of the subjects in the school syllabus.

Usha Padhee, commissioner-cum-secretary, School and Mass Education, said apart from studies, efforts have to be made to encourage students to give full experession to their creativity.

Stating that the children’s festival should reach out to nearly 60 lakh students of 60,000 schools in the state, Padhee urged the teachers to encourage their students to showcase their latent talent at the festival.

Guest of honour at the festival, Prasanna Patsani, in his address, said festival of this kind would be immensely helpful for the students to development their mental attitude and aptitude.

For the first time, book stalls and postal ticket stalls have come up at the festival venue.

Besides, the Energy, Forest and Environment, Tribal Welfare and Handicrafts and Handlooms departments, Bayonika, OPEPA (Odisha Primary Education Programme Authority), SCERT (State Council of  Education Research and Training) have also opened stalls at the festival in which more than 2500 students from various schools across the state are participating.