Jaipur: Come September, the schoolchildren in Rajasthan will get a glass of milk daily along with their mid-day meal.Chief minister Vasundhara Raje made the announcement at the state-level function of the 72nd Independence Day held at the SMS Stadium on Wednesday.She said, students of Class 1 to 8 of government schools would be given milk daily instead of thrice a week at present.She said, an additional allocation of Rs 203 crore has been made for this purpose. The government had introduced the Annapurna Milk scheme to provide milk to students at government schools thrice a week only last month.Similarly, she said, children in the age group of 3-6 years, adolescent girls and pregnant and lactating mothers registered with Anganwadi centres will also be provided milk thrice a week in additional to the nutritional food provided at these centres and the government will allocate Rs 100 crore for this purpose. Besides “girls will be given free training at ITI centres.The chief minister said, the month of September will be observed as ‘nutrition month’ to create awareness about nutrition and healthy living in rural as well as urban areas of the state.The chief minister also announced two per cent interest subsidy to farmers who repay their long-term agriculture loan from cooperative banks on time. The government had recently reduced the interest for long term agriculture loans to 7.5% which has been further reduced to 5.5% now.Construction of 94 new school buildings, vocational courses in 185 additional schools of secondary and senior secondary level, lowering of electricity duty for induction furnaces, mild steel re-rolling mills and mild steel rolling mills from 52 paise to 40 paise per unit were among other announcements."The government will spend Rs 775 crore on constructing 94 new school buildings and 7,080 additional classrooms in 2,400 schools," she said.The district employment officer will now be made the district skill & vocational training officer, she said.The chief minister claimed that her government worked with commitment for all sections of the society without any discrimination and had created 17 lakhs employment."We want Rajasthan to become a modern state and get recognition in the country and around the world for modern education, new vision and new technology," Raje said.“Our next step is to make our children modern citizens. They should not lag in competition at any level. It is our endeavour that our girls get more attracted towards STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths),” she said.

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