Children’s Day 1963

This first day cover was issued to celebrate Children’s Day in 1963. The  15nP stamp and the cover, both depict the distribution of Mid Day Meals to children.

The Mid Day Meal Scheme is a programme of the Government of India designed to improve the nutritional status of school-age children nation wide. The programme supplies free lunches on working days for children in Primary and Upper Primary Classes in Government, Government Aided, Local Body, Education Guarantee Scheme, and Alternate Innovative Education Centres, Madarsa and Maqtabs supported under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and National Child Labour Project schools run by the Ministry of Labour. Serving 120,000,000 children in over 1,265,000 schools and Education Guarantee Scheme centres, it is the largest such programme in the world.