More than 30 million students in rural China are now benefiting from free nutritional lunch program launched by the government, according to an official spokesperson on May 4.

The scheme covers more than one third of all the counties in China, state-run news agency Xinhua quoted China’s vice education minister Lu Xin as saying.

At a video conference on the program, Lu said over one fourth of rural students in compulsory education are benefiting from the program.

The scheme was launched in 2011 to improve nutrition condition of rural students, each of whom gets a free lunch at school every day.

Lu asked education officials at all levels to strengthen food safety supervision in schools, calling for coordinated work with other departments.