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| HRD ministry picks up holes in Mid- day meal scheme implementation | | | Syed Junaid Hashmi
JAMMU, July 2: Union Human Resource Development Ministry has picked up holes in the implementation of much-hyped centrally sponsored Mid-day meal scheme in Jammu and Kashmir.
Ministry has in one of its review reports for the year 2011-12 (upto April 2012), copy of which is with Early Times, pointedly referred to certain areas of concern and asked the state government to redress them at the earliest. According to the report, state has been unable to maintain buffer stock of one-month's requirement in any of the visited school.
Food grains are not delivered at school. Cooking cost is not received regularly by the school/implementing agency. The extent of delay varies from 3 to 4 months as MDM funds are received by the schools when released from CEO's Office. It has stressed that MDM in-charge with the help of school management committee ensures uninterrupted feeding of MDM to the students.
Amount spent on this is either managed out of school grants or is managed by the school staff. Few schools displayed its weekly menu inside the kitchen shed which is not noticeable to the community. There is no health card maintained in any of the schools. Children are not given micro-nutrients or de-worming medicine in any of the visited schools. MDM in-charge or SMC is not even aware about such requirements.
In 90 percent of schools visited, only one cook-cum-helper was found in place irrespective of roll of students in school, Cook cum helper are not being paid regularly due to late release of funds from CEO to ZEO office. MDM funds are not released in time. SMCs have received first installment of cooking cost and honorarium to cooks in the month of July and 2nd installment in the month of November.
In 12 visited schools across the state, reports says that MDM is cooked either in class room or on varendah of the school and in 4 visited schools neither the kitchen shed nor any alternate arrangement is available in the school but food is cooked in the cook cum helper's kitchen which is nearby and served in the school. In one visited schools, neither the kitchen shed was available nor food served to the students for last three months.
It has further reported that 16 schools had no kitchen sheds available while food was being cooked in one of the rooms and food grains also stored in the same room. In some schools, 20 percent hygiene was not up to the mark.
In 31 visited schools; VEC members occasionally supervise, monitor and participate in the school activities. However, no such roaster was maintained by community members for supervision of the MDM and also no inspections are carried out by the block and district level officials. Delay in delivering food grains was also reported at about 10 schools, says the monitoring report.
It maintains that the delay is due to non availability of grains at food depots and this delay lasts for 1-2 months, but school authorities are managing the MDM. Further, schools are not receiving cooking cost in advance there is always delay of 3-4 months. This delay is due to release of grants from District to zones and zones to schools. Cooking cost is paid by cash against a proper receipt.
More importantly, Utensils for serving food are carried by children from their homes. Apart from this, frequency of inspections by Zonal officers is once or twice in a year. This is due to the fact that no funds were made available to ZEO/CEO for monitoring the programme due to which they found it difficult to visit schools which are in remote/inaccessible areas.
Pertinently, Mid-Day Meal Scheme was launched across the country to attract students belonging to economically backward families and check dropouts. Notably, in J&K the scheme, launched in the year 2004, is already under scanner as the recent reports suggest that the number of school-going children is declining, thus undermining its objective.
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