This week’s front-page stories about India Inc getting into big-ticket infrastructure, real estate, agro-processing and information technology pushed into the sidelines another significant foray by corporate India. This time, into the mid-day meal scheme in Rajasthan.

Responding to an aggressive campaign by the state government to attract the private sector to ramp up its mid-day meal scheme, the biggest corporate names in India and abroad and industry-backed NGOs are adopting district after district in the state to ensure that children coming to schools get high-quality meals during their lunch breaks.

The Birla group, Mahindra and Mahindra, Infosys, DCM Sriram and Sterlite groups are already part of the scheme in Rajasthan. The Tatas, Oberois, Nevatias (Gujarat Ambuja), and even steel king L N Mittal have also expressed their interest to join.

Confirming this, the state’s mid-day meal scheme director Sudhansh Pant said: “More than 4.5 lakh children in Rajasthan are getting extremely nutritious food prepared by some of the big industrial houses in the country.”

Rajasthan is arguably the only state in India which has been able to attract so much support from the private sector for this scheme. The involvement of the private sector in the scheme, launched in July under the directives of the Supreme Court, is a result of a well-devised public-private partnership.

There are more than 73 lakh students in various primary schools of Rajasthan. And though the state and the Centre set aside a provisional budget of nearly Rs 580 crore, the average amount that the state could spend on a student, including the transportation cost, was just Rs 3.20 per meal.

... contd.