New Delhi: The mid-day meal tragedy in Bihar, which killed 23 children who ate contaminated cooked food, has turned the national spotlight on problems affecting the flagship government scheme — with lack of monitoring and hygiene, as also huge corruption, discrediting what is called the world’s largest school feeding programme.
While reports of insects or lizards being found in the meal keep cropping up, unhygienically cooked and under-nutritious food are the other issues dogging the scheme. The mid-day meal scheme provides children in over 1.2 million government-run schools a hot and nutritious meal every day, which besides encouraging attendance and improving nutritional levels, also helps to arrest dropout rates.
Experts say the scheme suffers from structural problems, the biggest being the lack of a proper monitoring mechanism.
“The mid-day meal scheme was adopted on the pattern of the Madras Municipal Corporation school lunch scheme. The problem is there is no clear structure defined, and every state functions according to its wish,” said Ambrish Rai, convenor of the Right to Education Forum, an umbrella body of NGOs working in the field of education.
“In most places, it is a matter for the teachers to manage. In some places, NGOs or private contractors do the job. The scheme is better managed in south Indian states, but in the northern part of the country the situation is pathetic,” Rai said. Rai said “huge corruption” at all levels was destroying the scheme.
“Children are getting low quality and insufficient food; hence there is lack of nutrition. Corruption is involved in the delivery system. Fake enrolments are being done to embezzle money. These rackets are killing this very important scheme, and the main reason is lack of guidelines and institutionalisation,” he said.
Mohammed Irfail, who is attached to the Right to Food campaign and is working in the field of mid-day meals in West Bengal, said lack of monitoring is the biggest problem.
“Government agencies are not doing the monitoring. Even if there are committees at some places, they are not functional. They submit reports sitting at their tables without having visited schools. How would the government ever know what is happening in the name of mid-day meal scheme?” Irfail said.
“The government says it is taking all the steps, but it is an eyewash. There is no infrastructure in schools; many of them have no running water; hygiene is not maintained; and in addition, the money provided fills the pockets of those who arrange for supplies,” Irfail said.
Irfail went on to allege that he smelled a rat in the government’s treatment of the scheme. “Perhaps the government does not want the scheme to function properly. They want problems to be created so that people ask them to stop the scheme altogether. Maybe they want to hand over the scheme to some corporate organisation.” IANS
