pune the state education department will train some 165 lakh workers on maintaining workplace hygiene and cooking healthy recipes in the centralised kitchens across maharashtra the state government also plans to give them aprons skull caps gloves and other safety material that would help in better hygiene while cooking director of primary education department sharad gosavi said under the pradhan mantri poshan shakti nirman yojana cooking and hygiene lessons will be given to cooks and helpers who prepare meals for students in staterun schools a private organisation will be picked by the directorate of primary education and training will be provided across the state in march and april the midday meal scheme was started in 1995 for students of stds i to v in 2008 the scope of this scheme was increased and nutritional food was given to students from stds i to viii recently this scheme was named pradhan mantri poshan shakti nirman yojana under this scheme nutritional food is provided to students in the form of cooked food and cooks and helpers are appointed for the purpose a decision was taken a few days ago to increase the salary of kitchen helpers to rs 2500 guidance will be given on aspects such as cleanliness useful recipes for childrens health maintaining clean surroundings while cooking and selfhygiene among others a tender process has been implemented to select the training institutions added gosavi