By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Feb. 22: With a target to control the use of junk food as day meal for school children, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) has released a menu of 60 different foods that could be fed to the children.
After the government announced to provide day meal to all primary level children across the country, the Centre for Education and Human Resource Development (CEHRD) recently published the list of foods to control the use of junk in schools.
The list of 60 types of food has been prepared on a regional basis-- high mountains, hills, terai, east, centre and west.
According to the menu, various dishes need to be prepared and fed from the grains produced in the respective regions.
These include oatmeal, corn pudding, chino khir, curry, bean pancakes, millet pudding, mushroom kwati, potato cheese, chiura, almonds, meat, kwati, pani roti and dhindo. Similarly, khichadi, chhola chiura, yogurt, wheat pudding, roasted maize, soybean, puri, roasted rice, puwa, green maize and aludam are also in the menu.
The government has stated that children can get 30 per cent of the nutrition from these foods out of daily requirement.
Budget for the day meal will be provided to the school through local government where it has set a target of providing lunch to 2.94 million children for the current session.
The government has allocated Rs. 15 per student per day. Day meal has been provided to each student for 180 days a year.
The students will have meal only on the day they attend class. They will not be allowed to take money in place of meal.
A total of Rs. 7.72 billion has been allocated for lunch for the current fiscal year 2077/78. "The main objective is to provide lunch to the children by making food from local products," said Baikuntha Aryal, director general of the Center for Education and Human Resources.