Centre asks all schools to set up kitchen gardens
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has issued guidelines for developing and maintaining kitchen gardens in all schools, both in urban and rural areas.
The Centre has issued instructions to all the states and union territories to set up a Kitchen Garden in all its schools. The Human Resource and Development Ministry has issued the guidelines for developing and maintaining a kitchen garden in all the schools situated in both rural and urban areas of each state.
The HRD Ministry has sent instructions to Chief Secretaries and Education Secretaries of all states under the guidelines for School Nutrition (Kitchen) Gardens to issue necessary instructions to the state/UT for setting up of kitchen gardens in all schools.
As per the guidelines, provision of seeds, saplings, organic manure, training and technical assistance under the scheme can be obtained by tying up with agencies like Krishi Vigyan Kendras, Department of Agriculture/Horticulture, Food and Nutrition Board, state agriculture universities and forest department.
The exercise is aimed at improving nutrition in schools, inculcating habits among children in an era of rapid urbanization. It also seeks to develop among children the skill of growing own vegetables and fruits in schools and homes.
The MHRD guidelines also outlines how these gardens can help in reducing the harmful effects of climate change. The plants in the school kitchen garden would help store carbon from atmosphere in the soil. Also, growing food locally would reduce the need to transport food from other places thus decreasing contribution to carbon emission from vehicles which are used to transport food products.
Seeds, saplings, organic manure, training and technical assistance for setting up the kitchen garden can be obtained by getting into tie-ups with agencies like Krishi Vigyan Kendras, the Department of Agriculture/Horticulture, Food and Nutrition Board, State agriculture universities and the forest department.
Apart from these, under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme, activities like the construction of boundary walls and leveling of the land for the kitchen garden can be taken up.
