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Hyderabad: The Telangana government in its annual budget on Friday (March 20) announced free breakfast for all school going children, right from pre-primary level to senior secondary classes, while extending the existing mid-day meal programme in schools to include students studying in secondary and senior secondary classes as well.

The twin programmes were allotted Rs 900 crore in the annual budget of Rs 3.24 lakh crore. The programmes will be fully-funded by the state government without any contribution from the Union government, Telangana principal secretary, finance, Sandeep Kumar Sultania told The Wire.

The state government has proposed that the nutritious breakfast will include milk for three days and ragi malt for three days. Out of the total allocation of Rs 900 crore, around Rs 800 crore will be spent on breakfast while Rs 100 crore has been allocated for the extension of the mid-day meal scheme for children studying in intermediate classes.

These initiatives were among nine new schemes announced by the government in what was largely seen as a desperate political compulsion to rebut criticism over its alleged failure to implement six guarantees that were the election promise of the ruling Congress.

The six promises related to implementation of Mahalaxmi scheme of Rs 2,500 pension to women, cooking gas cylinders at Rs 500 and free bus ride, Rytu Bharosa scheme of investment support amounting to Rs 15,000 per annum per acre to farmers, Rs 12,000 per annum for agricultural labour and bonus of Rs 500 per quintal for paddy producing fine rice, Gruha Jyothi scheme of free power up to 200 units for all households, Indiramma housing scheme of house sites and Rs 5 lakh towards construction cost, youth development scheme of Rs 5 lakh payout for students to pursue higher education and ‘Cheyuta’ (handholding) scheme of Rs 4,000 social security pensions for old aged. Barring free bus ride to women and four instalments of input cost paid to farmers and partial........

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