Village dairy farms provide free milk to students
The government's campaign to distribute milk free among school
children countrywide to raise their nutrition levels began in the Nuwara
Eliya District on Monday.
Accordingly, 159,403 children in 523 schools in the district will be
given liquid milk under the auspices of the Economic Development
Ministry.
In keeping with the Mahinda Chinthana vision of President Mahinda
Rajapaksa, its objective is to make Sri Lanka self-sufficient in liquid
milk and make it available to school children through dairy farms in the
respective areas.
It will also benefit local farmers and secure their economic future.
The campaign commenced with the participation of 1,406 students at
the Good Shepherd Convent, Nuwara Eliya.
Deputy Economic Development Minister Muththu Sivalingam was the chief
guest where in addition to milk, an egg was given free to each student.
Participating in the event, Nuwara Eliya District Secretary P. P.
Kumarasiri expressed the hope that this would greatly help to eliminate
malnutrition in the district which has recorded the highest percentage
of malnutrition among infants in the country.
Sri Lanka has 9,662 state-run schools where nearly 3.9 million
children study.
Under this programme each student will be given 150 milliltres of
milk.
The programme will be extended to cover all schools with the
assistance of the Education Ministry, according to Economic Development
Minister Basil Rajapaksa.
Kumarasiri said 120,000 litres of milk per day are being produced in
Nuwara Eliya and the recent problem involving 30,000 litres of milk has
now been solved since milk produced in each village will be sold among
the people under the new programme.
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