Chennai: The sinister agenda of anti-people forces to create wrong impressions about the welfare measures launched y the DMK government through the dissemination of fake news would not work as the schemes were being well appreciated by the actual beneficiaries on the ground even if newspapers did not have a word of praise and skeptics, reveling in exaggeration, were making up negative stories to run them down, Chief Minister M K Stalin said on Monday. Inaugurating the expansion of the Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme for primary class students studying in government aided rural schools at an event organized at St Anne’s Primary School at Keelachery in Thiruvallur district, Stalin said his government did everything to ensure a better future for students by breaking all the barriers that came their way, be it hunger or the NEET or the New Education Policy. When the Dravidian Model government protested against NEET, the all-India entrance examination for medical admissions, everyone one asked why they were doing it but now the Supreme Court had raised questions on the manner in which the examination was being held and many States had started opposing it, he said. Throwing a challenge to the Union BJP Government that was now speaking vehemently against the Emergency for political reasons, he asked if it could do one constructive work by reversing the decision taken during the Emergency to shift Education to the concurrent list from the State list. While the DMK government opposed NEET and the New Education Policy (NEP) that were not needed at all by launching legal and political battles, he wanted the students to be focused on their studies as education was the only wealth that could not be pilfered by others and urged them to keep learning, learning and learning not just for them to come up in life but also for the nation’s future. The government would remove any impediment to education thrown at the students, he said, adding that the Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme was envisaged after he interacted with some students when he went to a school for an event and learnt that the children had turned up to school without having breakfast. During the planning for the scheme, he told the officials not to view the funds earmarked for the scheme as an allocation but as an investment for the future of the nation, he said. Also he had told the authorities involved in the implementation of the scheme to never compromise on the quality of the food served to students and always treat it as food meant for their own children. The scheme, providing free breakfast to primary class students, was initially launched in select schools with an allocation of Rs 33.56 crore with 1,14,095 students benefitting out of it. Then on February 28, 2023, it was expanded to 1005 urban centres for the benefit of 1,12,883 children and 963 rural centres to help 41,225 children. Then, on August 25, 2023, it was expanded at an event held in Thirukkuvalai village in Nagapattinam district, which was the birthplace of M Karunanidhi, and over 18,50,00 students started partaking of the breakfast in 30,992 government primary schools, evoking public appreciation, not just among poor people but also those from the middle class as it was helpful for working couple who need not have to worry about providing breakfast to their children before they left for school. So, the government had expanded the scheme on the birth anniversary of K Kamaraj to benefit 2,23,536 primary class students studying in government aided schools, which had earned kudos from a wide range of minority community leaders, taking the total beneficiaries partaking of breakfast to 20,73,000. Stalin said that providing food to others was an integral part of Tamil culture and tradition exemplified through ancient literary works like Purananuru, Thirukural and Manimegalai and stalwarts from the State like Avvaiyar and Vallalar eulogizing it as a virtue. Ever since the government launched the scheme, the students had gained confidence, parents relieved of a burden to ensure breakfast for their children and schools started witnessing enhanced enrollment and less dropout rates, he said.
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