Jagananna Gorumudda: AP to distribute coloured eggs to schools

AMARAVATI: How to ensure distribution of quality eggs to the government school students without it being exploited? The Andhra Pradesh Government has come up with a novel solution for its prestigious Jagannana Gorumudda scheme, to pre-empt the scope for poor quality eggs finding their way into the system. Henceforth, the eggs, given to students of all the government and aided schools in the state, will be coloured, and that too, in various hues.

Here is how the plan goes, as per the new changes to the scheme ordered by the State Government led by Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy.

Under its prestigious scheme, the State Government has been providing five boiled eggs to the schoolchildren during the school week days between Monday and Friday. Until now, the contractor, catering to the Jagananna Gorumudda scheme, has been supplying the chicken eggs to the schools, once every 10 days. This amounted to a three-time supply in a month.

The State Government, which conducts periodical surveys to review the implementation of the scheme as part of its mission to provide quality food to the students and ensure good amount of nutrition, has felt the need for immediate changes in the distribution of eggs. The State Government has also scurried into action following criticism in the recent past about the quality of eggs and their preservation duration.

To address this concern, the YSRCP Government has issued orders for the supply of chicken eggs to the government schools once every week, instead of the earlier arrangement of 10 days. Effectively, the contractor will henceforth have to supply eggs four times in a month, a move which is likely to minimise the chances of them getting rotten.

What's more, the contracting agency has also been ordered to supply the eggs that bear coloured stamps, with the hues changing every week. The colours chosen are blue for the first week of a month, pink for the second week, green for the third week and violet for the fourth and the last week of the month. Eggs with coloured stamps, according to the State Government's concept, will ensure freshness of eggs supplied every week to provide the desired levels of nutrition to the school students. The stamping of the eggs, in different colours every week, will also make the distribution system even more water-tight. For example, eggs bearing blue stamps will not be allowed for distribution beyond their designated first week, a move that is expected to put immense pressure on the contractor to procure only the best quality chicken eggs. School principals, who have been issued the revised guidelines to this effect, have also been instructed to refuse eggs that are not of the prescribed size.

All the details including stamped and unstamped eggs and their size will be entered into the app of the contracting agency that is responsible for the supply of chicken eggs.