Delhi's Municipal Corporation is set to introduce a more varied menu for school meals from November, with oat cookies, fruits, kheer and sambar rice among the new additions across nearly 1,500 MCD schools.
Under the revised approach, agencies operating MCD school kitchens will be asked to add at least one special item to the regular meal each day. Officials said the aim is to make nutritious food more appealing to children while retaining familiar dishes.
The menu will continue to include meals such as puri-aloo, dal-rice, chole-rice, rajma-rice and kadhi-rice. Sambar rice will be added, while wheat and ragi halwa are planned twice a week. The civic body wants vendors to introduce greater variety in preparation without removing popular meals.
The changes come as MCD prepares to hand over its school kitchens to a new group of agencies. Officials said 13 new vendors are expected to be selected, with surveys of shortlisted kitchens already underway.
The meals will continue to follow PM POSHAN nutrition requirements. At the primary level, the prescribed meal provides 450 calories and 12 grams of protein per child per day. Food supplied by agencies is also subject to testing through five third-party laboratories, with four samples collected from each agency every month.
The menu revamp follows an earlier plan to introduce idli-sambar, which has reportedly been delayed because of the cost of specialised equipment required for bulk preparation.
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