Face-off over father of noon-meal scheme

CHENNAI: Members of the AIADMK and Congress on Wednesday were engaged in a war of words in the State Assembly over who had introduced the nutritious meal scheme in Tamil Nadu. Participating in the discussion on the demands for grants for the Social Welfare Department, DMDK member  K Tamil Azhagan said the noon-meal scheme was introduced by the late leader K Kamaraj and later, former CM MG Ramachandran upgraded the scheme.Intervening, Social Welfare Minister B Valarmathi said during the tenure of Kamaraj, a scheme to offer food to poor children was implemented in some schools with assistance from the American organisation CARE.  But, MGR introduced the the Nutritious Meal Scheme as one fully funded by the State.Congress member NR Rangarajan objected to this and said when the Congress government stepped down in 1967, the noon-meal scheme was in force in over 28,000 schools.  However, Municipal Administration Minister KP Munusamy reiterated that no one could share the credit for introducing the scheme as it was the brainchild of MGR. Valarmathi said even before Kamaraj, the Justice party had offered noon-meal to school children in some parts of Chennai.In this connection, Speaker D Jayakumar read out a portion of the speech of CM J Jayalalithaa made in August last year reiterating the view that the nutritious meal scheme was introduced by MGR and nowhere in the country such a scheme was in vogue then. Now, the SC had directed that Centre should  implement the scheme across the country.