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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Midday meal index vetoed by Charu Sudan Kasturi

Midday meal index vetoed by Charu Sudan Kasturi

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published Published on Nov 13, 2009   modified Modified on Nov 13, 2009

An ambitious human resource development ministry proposal aimed at ending persistent gaps between allocated and needed funds that plague the midday meal scheme has been rejected by a key finance panel.

The Centre’s expenditure finance committee (EFC) has dumped the ministry proposal to tie costs of the meal scheme to fluctuating commodity prices through a special pricing index, The Telegraph has learnt.

The EFC’s approval is mandatory for central proposals with financial implications. The rejection effectively consigns the index proposal to the dustbin at least for now, sources said.

“This is a major setback because the proposal for an independent pricing index held the potential to end funding gaps not just now but also for the future,” a senior government official said.

The EFC has instead agreed to raise sanctioned per-child costing norms under the scheme — the world’s largest school lunch programme that has covered over 120 million children so far. The Centre has allocated around Rs 5,100 crore for the scheme this year.

While raising the costs may help reduce the deficit between allocations needed and sanctioned, it will not erase the gap because of fundamental flaws in the current sanction mechanism, ministry sources argue.

Depending on the number of eligible children each state projects, its needed central allocation is based on the number of teachers and staff it requires and on the per-child costs stipulated under government norms.

The per-child allocations at present are supposed to be based on the cost of ingredients — oil, rice and lentils for instance — that go into the meals.

But the cost norms are based on overall inflation figures, not specifically on the costs of commodities used in the meals. Once fixed, the norms are revised only after a few years.

Overall inflation statistics can hide fluctuations in prices of specific commodities relevant to the meal costs —the country is now witnessing rising food prices despite negligible inflation.

The current procedure for revising the costing norms acts as a further roadblock to realistic pricing, officials argue. Any revision needs to be approved by the EFC and the cabinet each time — after seeking comments from all relevant ministries — in a process that can take up to a year.

“By the time the cabinet approval is obtained, the revised norms become outdated and the exercise is redundant,” a source said.

Instead, the ministry had proposed a special mid-day meal pricing index that would only consider fluctuations in prices of five commodities essential to the scheme.

Costing norms, the ministry had proposed, would be tied to the index and would adjust automatically to fluctuations in the prices of the essential commodities.

An increase in costs of these items would automatically lead to a hike in pricing norms, binding the central and the state governments to higher financial commitments.

Under the ministry proposal, revisions in the pricing norms — with changes in costs of the mid-day meal commodities — would not be held hostage to bureaucratic delays.


The Telegraph, 13 November, 2009, http://telegraphindia.com/1091113/jsp/nation/story_11734791.jsp
 

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