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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Mid-day meal at Rs 3.34: Any wonder kids die?-Deepak Kumar Jha
-The Pioneer


A reality check for the ever- increasing inflation era exposes the farce of Government-sponsored Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS). When pulses are priced at Rs 90 per kg, inferior quality of rice or wheat at Rs 20 per kg, vegetables at Rs 40 a kg and edible oil over at Rs 100 per kg, providing a quality meal at Rs 3.34 to a child is impossible.

According to several NGOs/SHGs involved in MDMS, it is nearly impossible to run this programme for 12 crore children while ensuring quality and quantity with the prescribed nutritional value.

Under the situation, the HRD Ministry-sponsored mid-day meal, which prescribes a platter of 450 calorie from 12 grams of protein at mere Rs 3.34 per child per meal, does not conform to both quality and quantity norms.

The cost goes up to Rs 5 for upper primary schoolchildren with additional nutritional value of 700 calorie from 20 grams of protein. In addition, there is also provision for micro-nutrients like iron, folic acid, Vitamin-A, etc, to tackle common deficiencies found in local areas.

A layman calculation shows that provisioning a meal at Rs 3.34 for primary schoolchildren is next to impossible. For example, 100 gms of most inferior quality rice/wheat would cost Rs 2 and 20 gms of raw pulse Rs 2. Similarly, 50 gms of vegetables will cost a minimum of Rs 1.5 while edible oil, salt and condiments will require at least Rs 2 more. This will take the total to Rs 7.5 per meal. Including cooking fuel and other costs the price could easily touch double-digit figure.

Similarly, the Rs 5/meal per child for upper primary school level is also a hypothetical calculation in the days of inflation. The 700 calorie meal with a platter of 150 grams of low quality foodgrains would at least cost nearly Rs 12-13.

When contacted, leading NGOs and SHG admitted that the price tag is a big de-motivation factor and that is why the MDMS in the present scenario is failing to ensure quality, quantity, nutritional value and hygiene. Reports have also claimed that the schools went in for lifting substandard foodgrains from Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns to meet the expenses.

"It is very difficult and nearly impossible to give a meal at such a low price. But still when we are into a welfare scheme, we try and attempt to ensure no kid is hungry. To run this show we need lots of money which is at times collected from donations, etc, but we are not very confident of raising the fund every time. However, when we buy edible things in bulk it gets cheaper although not at the rate and value which the Government prescribes," Leena Joseph, the National Director of Naandi Foundation's Mid-day Meal Programme, told The Pioneer over phone from Bangalore. Naandi Foundation serves mid-day meal in four larger States.

Another leading NGO for MDMS, Akshya Patra said that they try to meet the deficit from other resources. "Since the amount sanctioned is not sufficient our NGO raises Rs 750 per child per year to deliver the quality and quantity to each child. We have restricted two meal programme like rice and sambhar besides curd to meet the nutritional value," said Bharathi Ghanashyam, Director (Communications), Akshaya Patra Foundation, the largest NGO under this scheme with its offices spread even in United Kingdom and United States.

Some of the well-known NGOs involved in this programme are Akshaya Patra, ISKCON, Stree Shakti, Naandi Foundation, Mahila Mandal, Tri Shakti. The expenditure is shared between the Centre and States on either on 90:10 basis or 75:25 basis depending on the category States/UTs.

The latest Quarterly report (July 2013) by the HRD Ministry too has pointed out critical and alarming issues due to cut down on quality, quantity of food leading to nutritional deficiencies. The report prepared by the regular monitoring of Joint Review Mission (JRM) for MDMS mentions that sampled children in most of the States have been found with low BMI, large number of children are anaemic.

"This clearly reflects the urgent need for a suitable strategy for addressing the issue of low coverage of children. The other observations of the JRM which needs immediate attention are timely release of funds from the States, delay in payment to cook-cum-helpers, delay in payment to FCI etc," HRD Additional Secretary (EE-II) Amarjit Singh said.

Singh, who was sent to Bihar after the tragic death of 23 children, noted that the incident was a case of "grave negligence". In the Bihar tragedy report, the oil used for preparation of soya bean vegetable was kept in a dirty bottle.

The Government in its defence stated that since the scheme is so enormous it is not possible to make any central purchase of food items and hence school principals had been authorised to purchase items. "Several of them, including Meena Devi, principal of Gandaman village school now in custody of Bihar Police might have taken advantage of the privilege and purchased substandard items for the programme," said Director of Bihar mid-day meal scheme R Lakshmanan.

An honorarium of Rs 1,000 per month to each cook-cum-helpers and a transport subsidy, infrastructure support, like facilitate construction of kitchen-cum-store and procurement of kitchen device in schools are some of the provision by the Central Government to run the MDMS over 12.65 lakh schools in the country.