The Telangana government on Friday launched a breakfast scheme for the government school students, reported The Indian Express.

The Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme aims to feed 23 lakh students from Class 1 to Class 10. The scheme, however, does not include schools run by panchayat raj institutions, reported the Hindustan Times.

Tamil Nadu implemented a similar scheme in September last year for students between Class 1 and Class 5. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had then sent a team led by an Indian Administrative Service officer to Tamil Nadu to study the implementation of the scheme in the state.

In Telangana, the students will be served breakfast on weekdays 45 minutes before the classes start. The menu includes idli and sambar or wheat rava upma and chutney on Mondays, puri and aloo kurma or tomato bath on Tuesdays, upma and sambar or rice rava khichdi on Wednesdays, millet idly and sambar or pongal and sambar on Thursdays, uggani/poha/millet idli and chutney or wheat rava khichdi on Fridays, and Pongal and sambar or vegetable pulao on Saturdays.

Minister for Information Technology and Industries KT Rama Rao said the scheme would cover 27,147 government schools and cost the government Rs 400 crore.

Rao said the scheme’s objective was to ensure that students whose parents leave for work early in the morning do not come to schools on empty stomach. The scheme would also address the problem of malnutrition among the children, besides improving their enrolment in schools, he added.

Health Minister T Harish Rao launched the scheme at the Zilla Parishad High School in Raviryala village of Rangareddy district.

“In most government schools, the students are from low-income groups and they cannot afford nutritional breakfast,” he said. “The scheme will help parents send their children to school on time without worrying about their food.”