Firming up Science and Technology in Mid day Meal Programme Through Introduction of Solar Cooking
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Date
2011
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Abstract
Children and their well-being are the basic concern of every nation. child nutrition plays a
vital role in positive health, functional efficiency and productivity in later stages of life. The
School Meal Programme aims to improve not only the nutritional status of school children
but also increase school enrolments, attendance, reduce dropout rates of the school children
and enhance scholastic performance. Each day meal provides roughly one third of the daily
nutrient requirement and helps to alleviate hunger and malnutrition among school children.
One area requiring urgent attention is the cooking of school meals which involves cost and
also pollutes the atmosphere. Solar cooker is the simplest technology which has been
developed for cooking food without requiring any conventional fuels. Solar cooker can be an
appliance for cooking in schools in which there is no smoke and no soot deposition. It saves
money and fuel, and preserves the nutritive value of the food.
The present study was undertaken to utilize solar energy for meeting the cooking
requirements in the school lunch kitchens. For facilitating the quantity cooking a paraboloid
solar cooker which is convenient, cost effective and operationally viable device was used to
study the possibility of opting for large scale solar cooking devices for noon meal
programmes to conserve fuel and to alleviate the drudgery of women being exposed in the
kitchen. The cooking experiment was conducted for a period of four months in Sk23
Paraboloid Solar Cooker using vessel cooking and pressure cooking for noon meal
beneficiaries in the selected primary schools. It was inferred from the study that the
introduction of Sk23 paraboloid solar cooker could conserve one third of the fuel cost in the
Noon Meal Programme.