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Kerala govt revises anganwadi food menu; introduces egg biryani, pulao
In January this year, a video had gone viral in which a child was heard making a fervent plea for biryani and chicken fry at the anganwadi instead of upma
Kochi: The daily food menu for over 33,000 anganwadis in Kerala has been revised with dishes like egg biryani and pulao introduced for the first time, said the state’s women and child development minister Veena George.
The minister said the government has ratified a model uniform food menu to be used in all 33,120 anganwadis in the state with the aim of ensuring a nutritious, protein-rich diet for the children.
In January this year, a video of Riju S Sundar, affectionately called Sanku, a child at an anganwadi in Devikulam taluk in Idukki district, had gone viral. In the video, Sanku was heard making a fervent plea for biryani and chicken fry at the anganwadi instead of upma. After the video went viral on social media, minister George had reacted to it stating that the government would consider Sanku’s request positively.
On Tuesday, George, while inaugurating the state-level reopening of anganwadis in Pathanamthitta district, announced that the government had revised the food menu by acceding to requests of children like Sanku.
“We realised that it was important to revise the menu and have a uniform meal plan across all anganwadis. Since we are already supplying eggs, we have decided to introduce egg biryani and pulao. Also, there has been an approval from the anganwadi working group on distributing milk and eggs from the current two days a week to three days. The finance department will approve the funding for this,” the minister said.
On the revised food menu are dishes like pidi (rice dumplings), green gram curry, rice, nutri laddoo, soy dry fry, stir-fried vegetables and broken wheat pulao, apart from milk and eggs.
The minister said the new initiative of the WCD called ‘Kunjoos’ to track the physical, mental and intellectual well-being of a child in anganwadis has also been launched this year. Kunjoos cards, which will help teachers assess the physical and mental faculties of over 5 lakh children, have been distributed, she said.
