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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Midday meals fail quality check, many kids left out

Midday meals fail quality check, many kids left out

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published Published on Jul 1, 2015   modified Modified on Jul 1, 2015
-The Times of India

NEW DELHI: Two decades after launch, implementation of the midday meal scheme in Delhi seems to suffer from teething problems. CAG says the scheme is still not reaching all the children it's meant to cover, the meals do not meet the minimum quality requirements, the monitoring system is weak and service providers remain empanelled despite defaulting.

Worryingly, some of the lacunae had been pointed out even in 2006, the last time CAG conducted a performance audit of the scheme. Little effort seems to have gone into closing those gaps and the purpose of the scheme—to encourage kids to enroll, stay enrolled and attend classes—is being defeated. Average attendance in primary schools had dropped from 74% in 2009-10 to 66% in 2013-14; and 65% of the enrolled kids are being covered (2013-14) as opposed to 72% (2010-11). The dropout rate is high—5,749 kids dropped out of the surveyed primary schools and 1,235 out of upper primary ones over 2009-14.

CAG considered 40 primary schools run by the east and south Delhi municipal corporations and 20 upper-primary ones under the Directorate of Education, Delhi government.

Some problems are as basic as identifying and reaching the beneficiaries. The CAG report states that of the 18,000 kids enrolled in the Education Guarantee Scheme and Alternative and Innovative Education Centres (both for out-of-school children) in 2013-14, "only 1,154 children...were covered." The government replied that only 2,047 kids are enrolled in the 19 centres run by NGOs/madrassas and that they'll be covered too, but an unimpressed auditor writes that it "indicates flawed planning of the directorate for identifying and covering all children of EGS and AIE centres." There was a delay of 18 months in implementing the scheme for upper-primary schools; the government had pleaded delay in empanelment of service providers.

Once empanelled, service providers are given a long rope. All cooked samples taken from selected districts of the DoE over 2013-14 failed the test for nutrition value. The DoE fined 37 defaulting service providers to the tune of Rs.77.25 lakh but "extended the supply orders of 31 service providers on March 31, 2014", including 12 "who were penalized every year for the past four years, thereby indicating continuous failure." In the south and east corporations, 44 out of 137 (tested over 2012-14) and 113 out of 249 (2011-14) samples failed the test. No one was penalized.


The Times of India, 1 July, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Midday-meals-fail-quality-check-many-kids-left-out/articleshow/47889308.cms


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