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This story is from February 9, 2007
Midday meal scheme benefits only 50 per cent of students
The state government's midday meal scheme in primary schools has done little to raise the nutritional status of children.
Given the high absenteeism and dropout rates of children from primary schools, the scheme is said to be reaching only about 50 per cent of the total 1.5 crore enrolled students.
Now, the HRD department has come up with new systems of tracking foodgrain meant for midday meal so that the right amount end up on the plates of students.
Recently, Union minister of state for HRD MAA Fatmi said only about 32 per cent of the foodgrain for midday meal was being lifted by the state government. But an officer clarified, "This figure is old. Now we are lifting almost 60 to 65 per cent."
He said cent per cent amount was not being lifted as all the enrolled children did not attend school every day. "In our government schools, an average attendance of 60 per cent prevails every day. So, we lift grain accordingly," he said.
With a shortage of classrooms and teachers in many schools, about 70 to 80 students are made to sit in one classroom. Such congested environs and lack of adequate teachers have led to a high rate of absenteeism and dropout.
HRD secretary and education commissioner M M Jha said with the move to construct more schools and hire more teachers, these problems would be tackled. He also said a new midday meal delivery system had been devised which would reduce pilferage.
"In the earlier system, foodgrain would be released from the Food Corporation of India godown and land up with the State Food Corporation. From there, it would be given to the Public Distribution System mechanism with a hope that the right amount would be transported by the PDS shops to the schools."
However, this complicated link eventually developed chinks and pilferage became the norm of the day. "The schools were dependent on the PDS shops to send them grain. And often due to some flimsy reason or the other, either no grain or inadequate quantities would reach," he said. Now, in a recent cabinet decision, the delivery mechanism has been totally changed. "We have kept out the PDS from our midday meal scheme as we realised maximum leakage occurred once the grain entered the PDS domain," Jha said.
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