Students will get milk 5 days a week from April 1

Dharwad: Chief minister Siddaramaiah said schoolchildren will get milk five days a week from April 1.
At present, schoolchildren are getting milk three days a week under Ksheera Bhagya scheme.
He claimed that the midday meal scheme and Ksheera Bhagya have helped contain malnutrition among children and improve attendance in schools. Similarly, the Anna Bhagya scheme has helped prevent migration of people in search of jobs, he added.
He was speaking after laying a foundation stone for a new milk powder production unit at Dharwad Milk Union here on Saturday.
He said Karnataka is the second largest milk producing state in India and the state government is committed to encourage dairying as an allied activity of agriculture. “Currently, the state is producing around 72 lakh liters of milk per day and the target is to increase it to 100 lakh liters in two years. In a bid to encourage farmers to take up dairy farming, the government has enhanced the incentive on one litre of milk from Rs 2 to Rs 5 and the government is spending Rs 3.5 crore everyday on this count,’’ he added. The Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) is now procuring 2.20 lakh liters of milk per day and many projects have been planned to increase the procurement to 5 lakh liters per day and the government would provide necessary financial assistance to help these project, the CM said.
District minister Vinay Kulkarni, ministers Mahadev Prasad, MLC Basavaraj Horatti and president of DMU Neelakantha Asuti among others were present.
DMU president Neelakantha Asuti said that the unit will produce 30 metric tonnes of milk powder every day. This will help the customers to get quality milk powder.