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(THE GIST OF PIB) Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman Scheme

(DECEMBER-2024)

Recently, 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.
Recently, 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 %.