Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman Scheme:
The central government has revised the prices of food items provided to children under the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Yojana.
- In 2021, Mid-Day Meal Scheme was renamed as Pradhan Mantri POSHAN Scheme.
- It is a centrally sponsored scheme, which aims at providing nutritional support and enhancing school participation of students.
- Under the scheme, one hot cooked meal is served to students studying in Balvatika (pre-primary education program) and classes I to VIII, in Government and Government-aided schools on all school-days.
- The objectives of the Scheme are to address two of the pressing problems for majority of children in India, viz. hunger and education by:
- Improving the nutritional status of eligible children in Government and Government aided schools.
- Encouraging poor children, belonging to disadvantaged sections, to attend school more regularly and help them concentrate on classroom activities.
- Providing nutritional support to children of elementary stage in drought-affected and disaster affected areas during summer vacation.
- The Labour Bureau, Ministry of Labour provides data on inflation for the items under the PM POSHAN basket on the basis of Consumer Price Index – Rural Labourers (CPI-RL).
- The CPI-RL is constructed by Labour Bureau on the basis of collecting continuous monthly prices from the sample of 600 villages spread over 20 States of the country.
- On the basis of CPI-RL, the Government of India has enhanced the ‘Material Cost’ of the items under the PM POSHAN basket by 13.70 %.
