PMO, Renuka spar: Hot meals or packaged food for kids

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: WCD insists on ready-to-eat food for kids but PMO pushes for hot meal.

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New Delhi: Women and Child Development (WCD) Minister Renuka Chaudhary has proposed a new scheme to provide supplementary nutrition for children under the age of six.

WCD insists on giving packaged ready-to-eat meals, despite objections from the Prime Minister Office.

Ministry officials are on Tuesday likely to push for ready-to-eat fortified food in an Expenditure and Finance Committee meeting to decide on the supplementary nutrition issue, under the flagship government programme called Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS).

The Planning Commission had earlier intervened opposing the move, following which the PMO insisted that the Supreme Court guidelines on the issue be followed.

In an earlier ruling, the Supreme Court had mooted the idea of providing hot cooked meals, but WCD in a note prepared for the scheme insisted on providing ready-to-eat meals to children between three and six years, and after two years, a provision of cooked food be considered in a phased manner.