ISLAMABAD, Oct 10: The World Food Programme will distribute high-energy biscuits originally meant for people of the war-torn Iraq to nearly 270,000 schoolchildren in the earthquake-hit areas of the NWFP and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

WFP’s spokesman Amjid Iqbal told Dawn that the United Nations agency had decided to divert some of its shipments from its main stores in Italy to Pakistan because people still lacked cooking facilities.

The biscuits and dates were distributed among the people of the quake-hit areas during the relief phase.

Now the World Food Programme has chosen 2,960 schools in these areas where students are given 75kgs of biscuits and the same quantity of dates during recess every day.

The WFP decided to distribute biscuits in schools when it realized that its stocks were not being used properly.

The biscuits are also being used by troops during war time. During tsunami, major earthquakes and even the recent Katrina in the US, high energy biscuits had served as instant food.

More than 6,298 educational institutions were damaged by last year’s earthquake in Pakistan. Some 67 per cent of educational institutions in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province were either damaged or destroyed.