Meal timings may be rescheduled

HYDERABAD: Over the past few days the school education department has been busy drawing up charts and schedules to help children escape the summer and yet, serve them their piping hot midday meals.
With the mid-day meal scheme in place across the state and summer already making its presence felt, the school education department appears to have a new problem on its hands.
"We want to draw-up a schedule to ensure that children get their meals, that it is not too early in the day and they do not have to wait till afternoon when the temperatures really soar," a senior school department official said.
Temperatures in the city as well as in the other parts of the state are already touching a high of about 36 degrees Celsius. Unlike the previous years when morning schools for children began during the second week of March or sometimes even later, this year the school education department wants to implement the morning school schedule earlier.
"We would like to implement the schedule from the last week of February or the first week of March," school education department secretary I V Subba Rao said. "The difficulty is only with government schools because we have to juggle the timings with the mid-day meal," another school education department official said.
This would mean change in cooking and supply schedules. The mid-day meal scheme across the state has just about settled into a regular cycle and the officials are a "little hesitant" to disturb it. "It may go haywire again," the official said.
"We are holding discussions with various DWCRA groups across the state to ensure that we strike a balance," Subba Rao said. In the normal schedule, the school timing is from 9 am to 3.15 or 3.30 pm with a 10-minute interval before noon and a 30 to 40-minute break for lunch.
During the morning schedule which is implemented in summer, schools begin at about 7.30 am or 8 am and end at 12 noon with a 10 or 15-minute break at about 10 am.
•Officials planning changes in meal timings in summer
•Morning schools likely to begin earlier this year