Close on the heels of the Tamil Nadu government, the Telangana government on Friday launched the ‘Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme’ for all school children studying in the government schools, besides those being run by the panchayat raj institutions.

State minister for information technology and industries K T Rama Rao (KTR) launched the scheme at the government high school, West Marredpally in Hyderabad and shared the breakfast with the students.

Addressing a gathering after launching the scheme, KTR said the innovative scheme, first of its kind in the state, would benefit 2.3 million students in 27,147 government and panchayat raj schools across the state at a cost of around ₹400 crore.

The nutritious breakfast would be served every morning, 45 minutes before the commencement of the classes. The menu comprises idli and sambar or wheat rava upma and chutney on Mondays, puri and aloo kurma or tomato bath on Tuesdays, upma and sambar or rice rava khichdi on Wednesdays, millet idli and sambar or pongal and sambar on Thursdays, poha/millet idli and chutney or wheat rava khichdi on Fridays, and Pongal and sambar or vegetable pulao on Saturdays, he said.

“The breakfast is very nutritious and it tastes very good,” KTR said, adding that he had asked the officials to ensure that the food quality is maintained and that random samples will be collected to test the quality of food, frequently and regularly.

Stating that a similar scheme in Tamil Nadu has been implemented for school students from Class 1 to 5, KTR said a team of officials, who had gone to Tamil Nadu to study the model, have come up with a better model. “Chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao wanted the scheme be implemented for students up to Class 10 in Telangana,” he said.

He said the objective of the scheme is to ensure that students whose parents go for work early in the morning should not come to schools and attend classes on empty stomach. The scheme would also address the issues of malnutrition among the children, besides improving the enrolment of students in the schools.

State finance and health minister T Harish Rao who launched the scheme at the zilla parishad high school in Raviryala village of Rangareddy district, said the Chief Minister Breakfast Scheme is a revolutionary step in improving the nutritional standards of the students.

“In most of the government schools, the students are from low-income groups and they cannot afford nutritional breakfast. The scheme will help parents send their children to school on time without worrying about their food,” he said.

State education minister Sabitha Indra Reddy, who took part in the programme, said the scheme would bring down the dropout rates in the government schools. “During a meeting with the officials recently, I was told that only two students out of every 10 students have breakfast, while the rest come to school on empty stomach. The scheme will go a long way in helping the poor students have healthy and nutritious breakfast,” she said.