The children were from schools in Guntur town, Penchalapadu village in Anantapur district and Sattupalli in Khammam district. They all complained of stomachache, giddiness and headache after the meal and were taken to hospitals.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had launched the scheme, which was aimed at preventing dropouts, for 7.5 million children.

The chief minister termed it as the biggest community-owned programme taken up by any state in the country. The state government will spend Rs2.5 billion per annum while the Union government will supply free rice for the programme.

Naidu inaugurated the scheme at Shadnagar in Mahbubnagar district, about 40km from Hyderabad. He hoped that it would help in bringing back 140,000 dropouts and in achieving the state's goal of 100 per cent literacy by the year 2005.

The scheme will cover 7,459,095 children, he said.

The state had launched a similar scheme in 1983, when N T Rama Rao was the chief minister. It was, however, discontinued in 1987 due to irregularities in implementation.

Naidu, who lunched with schoolchildren, warned officials of action if the scheme was not implemented properly. However, the launch itself was marred by shortage of cooked rice and many children returned home hungry. "If this is the situation in my presence, what will you do later," an angry Naidu asked the local officials and school authorities.

The chief minister asked the students to stage protests against the school officials if they were denied food or if the quality of the food was not good. "You should not keep quiet," he told them.