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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Midday meals to lose gas cushion -Basant Kumar Mohanty

Midday meals to lose gas cushion -Basant Kumar Mohanty

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published Published on Aug 15, 2015   modified Modified on Aug 15, 2015
-The Telegraph

New Delhi: The Centre has decided to stop reimbursing states for the unsubsidised cooking gas cylinders they are forced to buy for the school midday meal scheme.

A food security adviser expressed the fear that the Centre's decision may force states to fall back on firewood. But a former member of the National Advisory Council backed the decision, saying states should make use of the additional money they were getting under a revised tax devolution formula.

After the petroleum ministry decided in 2013 to limit subsidised cooking gas cylinders to 12 a year for households as well as schools, the Centre had decided to bear 75 per cent of the midday meal expenditure on the additional, unsubsidised cylinders.

One of the conditions was that states must pay the full amount while buying the additional cylinders and would be reimbursed three-fourths of it later. The latest decision has come at a time several states have been opposing this condition.

Last week, the Union human resource development ministry wrote to all states and Union territories saying the finance ministry had decided to stop the additional reimbursement.

"It has been decided that additional expenditure to be incurred by the states and Union territories for procurement of unsubsidised LPG cylinders will not be reimbursed with effect from 1st April, 2015," said the letter from ministry director Gaya Prasad.

"This decision will prompt states to return to firewood, damaging the environment and causing hardship to the cooks," said Biraj Patnaik, the principal adviser to the Supreme Court-appointed commissioners on food security who track the implementation of the apex court's orders on food security.

"It's a setback for the midday meal scheme. The scheme's budget this year is already down by 30 per cent; this decision will further affect it."

Under the scheme, hot cooked meals are served every day to 10 crore children studying in Classes I to VIII in the country's 11.67 lakh government and government-aided schools. The Centre bears 90 per cent of the cost in the Northeast and 75 per cent elsewhere.

The budget allocation for the scheme was Rs 13,000 crore in 2014-15, and the human resource development ministry had demanded Rs 15,000 for 2015-16. But the Union budget allocated only Rs 9,000 crore.

Some states, such as Meghalaya, still largely use firewood to prepare the midday meal.

Meghalaya had been planning to shift to cooking gas in some schools this year but may now be deterred by the Centre's latest decision, a state official said.

Sources in the human resource development ministry said the estimated cost per meal had been increased by five per cent this year to allow for inflation. Since the budget allocation has fallen, this means the Centre may have to provide supplementary allocations under the scheme later in the year.

The revised cooking cost is Rs 3.76 per meal in primary classes (Classes I to V) and Rs 5.64 in upper primary (Classes VI to VIII). This cost includes the expenditures on ingredients and subsidised LPG cylinders, plus the cooks' pay.

N.C. Saxena, a former member of the National Advisory Council who was also on a committee formed in 2013 to check safety standards in the midday meal scheme, supported the Centre's decision.

He said the Centre was giving about 42 per cent of central taxes to the states under a formula for higher devolution. The states will receive an additional Rs 2 lakh crore this year, he said.

"The extra money the states are getting should be spent on the social sector," Saxena said.

But the Meghalaya official said the Centre had already stopped eight centrally sponsored schemes in exchange for the higher devolution of funds to the states.

He said that some of these schemes, such as police modernisation and grants to backward regions, had been left to the states to tackle. A further cut in the midday meal reimbursement would hurt the states, he added.


The Telegraph, 15 August, 2015, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150815/jsp/frontpage/story_37395.jsp#.Vc6zy5c1t_k


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