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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Midday meal scheme: Panel highlights obstacles -Akshaya Mukul

Midday meal scheme: Panel highlights obstacles -Akshaya Mukul

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published Published on May 6, 2015   modified Modified on May 6, 2015
-The Times of India

NEW DELHI: The National Monitoring Committee for midday meal (MDM) scheme that met on Tuesday was told there are areas of serious concerns with the flagship programme. For instance, it was pointed out there is unavailability of eating plates in most of the schools.

Report by various monitoring institutions (MIs) also said there is a delay in delivering cooking costs from state to school, cook-cum-helpers were getting irregular pay and in general the pace of construction of kitchen-cum-stores was slow. MIs also found that food served by NGOs was not hot in many states/UTs and quality and quantity of meals served by the NGOs/centralized kitchen needed improvement.

Even more worrisome was the fact that participation of local community was marginal and monitoring and supervision by state and district officials of the scheme minimal in majority of the schools.

On the positive side MIs found that MDM is being served in all schools, there is no discrimination on the basis of caste, gender and community in cooking or serving or seating, buffer stock is being maintained, and there is a provision of drinking water/water filters/RO system in many schools.

It has also been decided that an expert committee to suggest a ranking system for states based on their MDM performance will give its report shortly.

The meeting was also presented a report by the Joint Review Mission of MDM that visited four states — Assam, Maharashtra, Telangana and West Bengal — and came up with mixed results. While it acknowledged that in the past 20 years since MDM was launched it has made an impact as one of the most influential intervention in the social sector, JRM recommended that honorarium to the cook-cum-helper be reviewed and raised periodically to mitigate the effect of inflation. JRM found that, except Maharashtra, there is a massive backlog in construction of kitchen sheds in three other states which could pose serious problem to storage of foodgrains and cooking ingredients.

The Times of India, 6 May, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Midday-meal-scheme-Panel-highlights-obstacles/articleshow/47169564.cms


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