About 600,000 pupils in public basic schools across the country are now benefiting from the Ghana School Feeding Programe (GSFP).
Over one million pupils are targeted to be covered by 2010 under the programme which started in 2005.
The National Co-ordinator of the Programme Michael Nsowah, told the Times on Thursday that "we are doing everything possible to keep the programme on track.
"We are implementing the programme according to the procedures in the policy document so as to correct the disparities and distortions in the selection process."
Mr Nsowah said "we have adopted the quota system to ensure that deprived schools are given preference over more endowed schools".
He said 120,000 more pupils were recently selected to benefit from the programme with the majority of them from deprived schools in the Upper East, Upper West and Northern regions as well as other deprived areas being given preference.
He said the government had solely borne the cost of the programme for this year in its budgetary allocation.
Mr Nsowah said to comply with the policy guideline District Assemblies, through the District Implementation Committees were responsible for recruiting caterers for the schools.
"We want to avoid the situation where caterers go to scout for schools themselves and submit figures that are at variance with official records," he said, adding the DIC would serve as a check on this.
Mr Nsowah said prospective caterers who had the capacity to undertake mass cooking in hygienic environment must apply to their respective metropolitan, municipal or District Assemblies to go through the selection process.
The GSFP provides children in public basic schools with one hot nutritious meal, prepared from locally grown foodstuff every school-going day.
The programme started in 2005 with 10 pilot schools drawn from each of the ten regions. The first phase of the programme is to operate for a four-year period from 2007-2010 by which time over one million pupils would have benefited.
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