Roots of the programme The roots of the programme can be traced back to the pre-independence era, when a midday meal programme was introduced in 1925 in Tamil Nadu. Initiatives by state governments began in the 1962–63 school year. The Indian state Tamil Nadu was a pioneer in introducing midday meal programmes in India to increase the number of children enrolling in school; K. Kamaraj, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu at the time, introduced it first in Chennai and later extended it to all districts of Tamil Nadu. During 1982, 1 July onwards, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. G. Ramachandran upgraded the existing midday meal scheme in the state to 'Nutritious noon-meal scheme' keeping in mind that around 68 lakh children were malnourished. Gujarat was the second state to introduce an MDM scheme in 1984, but it was later discontinued. A midday meal scheme was introduced in Kerala in 1984, and was gradually expanded to include more schools and grades. By 1990–91, twelve states were funding the scheme to all or most of the students in their area: Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh. Karnataka, Odisha and West Bengal received international aid to help with the implementation of the programme, while in AP and Rajasthan the programme was completely funded by foreign aid. In Karnataka, the Children's LoveCastles Trust started providing midday meals in 1997. A total of eight schools were adopted and a food bank programme and an Angganwasi milk Programme were started. The food-bank programme was replaced by the State Government midday meal scheme. Initiatives by the central government The government of India initiated the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) on 15 August 1995. The objective of the scheme is to help improve the effectiveness of primary education by improving the nutritional status of primary school children. Initially, the scheme was implemented in 2,408 blocks of the country to provide food to students in classes one through five of government, government-aided and local body run schools. By 1997–98, the scheme had been implemented across the country. Under this programme, a cooked midday meal with 300 calories and 12 grams of protein is provided to all children enrolled in classes one to five. In October 2007, the scheme included students in upper primary classes of six to eight in 3,479 educationally backward