Tamil Nadu literacy successes
Tamil Nadu is the most literate state of India according to the HRD ministry of India's 2003 statistics. One of the pioneers of the scheme is the Madras that started providing cooked meals to children in corporation schools in the Madras city in 1923.The programme was introduced in a large scale in 1960s under the Chief Ministership of K. Kamaraj.The first major thrust came in 1982 when Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Dr. M. G. Ramachandran, decided to universalise the scheme for all children up to class 10.Tamil Nadu’s midday meal programme is among the best known in the country.[49] Starting in 1982, Tamil Nadu took an approach to promoting literacy based on free lunches for schoolchildren, "ignoring cynics who said it was an electoral gimmick and economists who said it made little fiscal sense."[50] The then chief minister of Tamil Nadu, MGR launched the program, which resembled a similar initiative in 19th century Japan, because "he had experienced as a child what it was like to go hungry to school with the family having no money to buy food".[50]
Eventually, the program covered all children under the age of 15, as well as pregnant women for the first four months of their pregnancy. Tamil Nadu's literacy rate rose from 54.4% in 1981 to 80.3% in 2011.[50] In 2001, the Supreme Court of India instructed all state governments to implement free school lunches in all government-funded schools, but implementation has been patchy due to corruption and social issues.[50] Despite these hurdles, 120 million receive free lunches in Indian schools every day, making it the largest school meal program in the world.[51]
Source:Wiki