No irregularity in purchasing eggs for nutritious meal scheme

There was no irregularity in the purchase of eggs from private players for supplying to children in government and government-aided schools under the nutritious meal scheme across the state, Social Welfare Minister B Valarmathi informed the Tamil Nadu Assembly today.
Replying to a special call attention motion brought by the opposition parties, which was taken by Speaker P Dhanapal, soon after the Assembly met for the day, Valarmathi said there was no loss to the state exchequer as alleged by the opposition parties.
Opposition parties had claimed that the same company which supplied eggs to the government for the scheme at Rs 3.19 per egg last year, sold a single egg at Rs 4.56 this year and the weight of the egg too was lesser than 45 gram unlike last year.

Claiming that district level tenders proved to be a failure in the yesteryears especially during the previous DMK government, the minister said only state level tenders helped the government to continue the scheme without any interruption.
Valarmathi said the allegations made by the opposition parties were not based on facts and presently the government did not face any challenge in running the scheme.
Earlier V C Chandrakumar (DMDK), S S Sivasankaran (DMK), K Balakrishnan (CPI(M), Gunasekaran (CPI), Aslaam Basha (Manidhaneya Makkal Katchi) and K Krishnasamy (Puthiya Tamizhagam) brought the special call attention motion against the government.