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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | In Uttar Pradesh, Mid-Day Meal Continues to Be a Recipe for Disaster -Khabar Lahariya

In Uttar Pradesh, Mid-Day Meal Continues to Be a Recipe for Disaster -Khabar Lahariya

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published Published on Jul 29, 2018   modified Modified on Jul 29, 2018
-TheWire.in

From rotten vegetables to frogs, the MDM in Uttar Pradesh has featured several unlikely ingredients. In a village in Chitrakoot district, while insects were the latest buzz, a severe dose of apathy appears to be the real cause of alarm.

Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh:
The website of the Uttar Pradesh Mid-Day Meal Authority (MDMA) proudly boasts of having won a gold trophy in “e-governance” for its innovative use of technology in monitoring the MDM scheme within the state. Using IVRS (interactive voice response system), a self-operated call is made to the authorised teacher of every school daily, who in turn responds by entering the total number of children who have successfully been provided a mid-day meal in that particular school. This allows the state government to effectively oversee as well as manage the scheme on a real-time basis.

Or so it claims.

In rural UP, what this award-winning system seems to be facilitating is a swell in numbers – of schools covered, meals cooked, children fed. The actual meal itself ranges from sub-standard and unhygienic to downright dangerous, such as the one we uncovered in Hanua village in the Chitrakoot district of U.P.

When we heard out the guardians and students of Hanua’s upper primary school complaining about the official apathy that shrouds the midday meals in their school, we followed up on the lead. We listened to them tell us about how pebbles, insects, worms, had often turned up in the food served to the students.

We spoke with an intimidated-looking Guddi, one of the students, who recounted, “There have been insects in our mid-day meals for the last six days, but the teachers only scold us when we complain to them about it.” Not surprisingly, the students have refused to consume these meals and, as a consequence, several of them have not been coming to school either.

The MDM is a centrally sponsored scheme launched in 1995 as a means to boost primary education and also to improve the nutritional levels of children. Its implementation, however, is plagued with the pervasive problem of mismanagement of funds, poor infrastructure and lack of proper training. The CAG report ending 2015, which surveyed 630 schools (out of over 16 lakh government schools) in UP threw up some dismal findings: over 30% of the schools lacked proper drainage and waste disposal facilities, while almost 20% did not even have proper doors or ventilation. In a blatant disregard of the MDM scheme guidelines, in more than half the schools covered, cooks had not been imparted any official training – in habits of hygiene or otherwise.

Furthermore, there was no involvement on the part of the community members or voluntary organisations in ensuring a standardised quality of meal that takes into account safety and hygiene measures during the cooking process.

Please click here to read more.

TheWire.in, 27 July, 2018, https://thewire.in/education/uttar-pradesh-mid-day-meal-recipe-for-disaster


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