In a bid to make lunchtime more interesting and the meal nutritious for children at ‘anganwadis’ in the district, a revamped lunch menu has been launched at the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Anganwadi at Umaru Pulavar High School at Nelpettai here on Monday.
The children aged between two and five, who were previously being given rice, pulses, spinach and eggs, will now be given ‘variety rice’ for lunch.
Collector L. Subramanian launched the project and served tomato rice and boiled eggs to the 20 children at the anganwadi. “A pilot project was initiated on March 20, 2013, with this revamped menu at the ICDS anganwadis in Kallupatti, which had 2,064 children. When we saw that the children really enjoyed the new dishes which reduced the wastage of food as well, we decided to implement the project across the district,” said District Project Officer T. Vasanthi.
The revamped menu includes tomato rice, mixed vegetable rice and lemon rice on three days of the week with boiled eggs, vegetables, or pulses.
The revamped menu would be implemented in phases across the district, officials said. “We have implemented the new menu in 20 per cent of the anganwadis in the district. This comprises 57 anganwadis under the Simmakkal area with 1,290 children, 73 anganwadis under the Palanganatham area with 1,718 children and 123 anganwadis under the Sedapatti area with 2,588 children,” said Ms. Vasanthi.
The project would be implemented further in two more phases on September 8 and September 15 and nutritious meals will be provided to 31,534 children aged between two and five in the ICDS anganwadis across the district, she added.
