Bijay Charak
Jammu, Oct 17: Despite funding by union government to provide mid-day meal to government primary school students from class I- IV, at least 13 schools of Kathua were alleged to have not received this facility for months.
Official sources informed Early Times that the mid-day meal scheme was launched on August 15, 1995 to give a boost to Elementary Education in terms of increasing enrolment, retention and attendance in primary classes by supplementing nutritional requirements of children attending primary schools. But amazingly, the scheme was introduced in Jammu and Kashmir in 2004-05, with the state government making claims that under it government primary schools of five zones in each district would be covered.
"It is very surprising that around 13 schools of Kathua, including government primary school, Rattan Chak of Block Hiranagar, NPS upper Dhanore Lakhanpur, KGBV Machhedi of Malahar, SPS Sarthal of Bani, Government Middle School Kadyala of Hiranagar and Government middle School Jamalpur of Lakhanpur, are yet to be covered under this scheme," sources said.
Criticizing the state government, sources said that at one hand government claimed that the class I-V students would be provided cooked mid-day meal with minimum 300 calories and 8-12 grams of protein content but on the other hand, government has even failed to provide potable water facilities to most of the schools in the district.
"Inspite of several central government schemes most of the primary schools in Kathua district are running from single rooms and do not have separate kitchen-cum- store facility. Due to the government's apathetic attitude towards its schools, the enrolment in them has been witnessing a downward trend and private schools are flourishing", sources said.
When contacted, Chief Education Officer, Kathua,T R Majota admitted that problem existed in some schools but it would be solved soon. |
