The mid-day meal scheme was renamed PM Poshan Yojana

- Now pre-primary students will also be covered

- Hot cooked food will be provided to 11.80 crore children of more than 11.2 lakh government and grant aided primary schools

New Delhi: The National Mid-day Meal Scheme run in government and grant aided schools has been renamed as PM Nutrition Scheme. The scheme will also cover kindergarten and pre-primary classes, the government said today.

The PM nutrition scheme was approved in a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Modi today. Under this scheme, lunch will be provided to 11.40 crore children of more than 11.5 lakh government schools. Currently, the government has decided to run the scheme for the next five years. This will cost a total of Rs 1.31 lakh crore.

The new scheme will also promote date meals. On the occasion of the festival, people serve food to government school children. Under the PM nutrition scheme, cooked food will be provided to school children.

Announcing this, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told reporters that the PM Nutrition Scheme was approved at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today.

Under this scheme, government and government grant run schools. Hot cooked food will be given to 1st to 3rd year students.

The scheme will now also cover pre-primary and kindergarten students.

The central government will spend Rs 5,081.5 crore on this scheme and Rs 512.12 crore will be recovered from the state governments. However, the central government will spend Rs 2,000 crore separately for foodgrains.

Cabinet approval for ECGC listing The government will also disburse Rs 4,400 crore

The Union Cabinet had approved a proposal to inject Rs 500 crore into the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) for a period of five years starting from FY 2021-2 and listing it through public offering.

The Rs 500 crore capital will be raised on an immediate basis and ECGC is scheduled to be listed next year, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal told reporters after the cabinet meeting.

As on September 31 of the current financial year, the country's total exports stood at Rs 15 billion. The ECGC has been set up to provide protection to exporters through credit insurance services against failure to make payments to exporters in the country by foreign buyers for business or political reasons.

Centre's approval to double the Rajkot-Canalus railway line

The central government today approved the doubling of the Rajkot-Kanalus and Nimach-Ratlam railway lines. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Rajkot-Canalus project is estimated to cost an estimated Rs 1,050.5 crore. Under this project a total of 111.50 km of railway line will be doubled. The project will be completed in four years, while the cost behind the Nimach-Ratlam railway line is estimated at Rs 106.5 crore.