Government to bear burden of midday meals

NAGPUR: With the cap on subsidized cylinders coming into effect, religious institutions like the Ayyappa temple at Anant Nagar will have to shell out more for its cooking activities. Shreekumar Pillai, secretary of the temple's trust, said, "From November 16 to January 14 we will be using up to one LPG cylinder everyday due to the holy month of Vrushchika.We will be making huge quantities of prasad for devotees and this price hike will surely hurt, but then rules are rules. On a regular basis, we just require two cylinders in a month, one for prasad and the other one to cook food for the staff."
The Gurudwara on Kamptee Road too sees an almost non-stop flow of devotees and its trustees are worried about the price hike. Tejpal Singh, secretary, Gurudwara Singh Sabha, said, "We have to prepare food for the community at large where everyone is welcome, so our requirement is naturally higher. Every month we use up almost 30 cylinders, so this drastic jump in prices will definitely hit us hard."
Schools are the other charitable institutes, where this decision will have an effect, since midday meals are prepared everyday at government and aided schools. While the LPG connection is in the schools' name and they pay for it, ultimately the state government reimburses that amount.
B Deshmukh, state government official in charge of midday meal scheme for Nagpur district, says around 4.7 lakh students in the district avail of the free meal scheme in schools. "Around 8,000 cylinders are needed every month in the district and we will reimburse any amount that they have to pay for LPG," he said