Bengal Reverses Decision to Hand Kolkata Mid-Day Meals to Akshaya Patra
West Bengal has reversed its decision to assign the Akshaya Patra Foundation the mid-day meal service in Kolkata's government schools, three weeks after the arrangement was proposed.
The West Bengal government has reversed its decision to hand over the mid-day meal service in government-run schools in Kolkata to the Akshaya Patra Foundation, just three weeks after the arrangement was put in place.
The foundation had been assigned the task of supplying meals under the scheme in the city's government schools. Under the original proposal, the model was to be treated as a trial: if the foundation's operations in Kolkata were found to succeed, the programme would have been extended to schools across the state's districts.
That plan has now been withdrawn. The reversal comes within weeks of the initial assignment, marking a sharp change in the state's approach to delivering the mid-day meal scheme in the capital.
The mid-day meal programme is a centrally supported initiative aimed at improving nutrition and school attendance among children in government and aided schools. States have varying arrangements for preparing and distributing the meals, with some relying on centralised kitchens run by non-governmental organisations and others on local committees, self-help groups or school-level kitchens.
The brief trial-and-expansion plan for Kolkata was the first stage of a wider rollout that will not now proceed as envisaged.