Midday Meal Scheme evaluation report highlights scopes for improvement WANGCHUK BHUTIA

MANGAN, 11 Dec: The Mid-Day Meal scheme is the world’s largest school feeding programme reaching out to about 12 crore children in over 12.65 lakh schools across the country. Since, the government is spending huge amounts of money for the day’s meal for the children to ensurethat children get at least one nutritious meal a day when they attend school as some children come from far flung areas.This has been helping the children especially who travel long distances to reach school.
According to the external monitoring and evaluation report 2013-14 North and East District of Sikkim prepared by the Himalayan Educational Society, the scheme has been running smoothly in the Upper Primary Level schools while there are some issues of concern at the Secondary and Senior Secondary level.
The report reveals that some of the schools serve poor quality of meals with most of it going to waste as children refuse to eat such food. Some of the kitchens were also found to be unhygienic. According to the children, they are mostly served pumpkin or squash [iskus] which they are not fond of since it is regularly cooked at home as well. The locally grown vegetables come cheaper and are freely available. Understandably, some of the students complained of the menu being monotonous while others also complained of the meals not being cooked properly.
In some schools it was found that the meals were not prepared at all due to the absence of the cook even as the norms lay down that a school must have two cooks and an assistant if the school has more than 100 children.
On the other hand, there are many schools that are providing quality meals to children which hashelped in enhancing the daily attendance of children.
The performance of the scheme in the North district’s 85 schools and 18 monastic schools was found to be average. Due to the difficult terrain of the area, it is difficult to reach rice stocks to the schools and transportation costs also run high as some of them are located in remote corners.
The report also states that in most schools, the MDM scheme is being run by the head of the institution instead of an SHG or NGO. Delay in payment of honorarium is the reason behind SHGs or NGOs hesitating to take up the scheme, it is mentioned.
It further reveals that some of the school heads still lack proper awareness on the concept and implementation of the scheme.
While the rice is supplied by the department, the cooking agencies buy other items for the meal. Most of the meals are cooked on firewood as found in several schools in a two-room kitchen shed constructed under SSA grants since refilling LPG cylinders is consumes a lot of time and effort owing to the recently launched KYC system.
Some schools in North Sikkim namely, Ringhim Junior High School, Sangtok JHS, Chawang JHS and RangRang JHS were found serving excellent meals to the children.
Some schools in the district namely, Ringhim Junior High School, Sangtok JHS, Chawang JHS and RangRang JHS were found serving excellent meals to the children. The midday meal scheme has also eased off some load from parents who say that it is a great help to them since they don’t have to reach meals to their children in schools.
Many heads of institutions have welcomed the monitoring of the MDM scheme and stated that this could help them correct mistakes and improve the implementation.
In East District there are a total of 232 schools and 31 monastic schools enlisted with HRDD for which the Mid-Day meal scheme is being provided.
It may be mentioned here that Mid Day Meal in schools has had a long history in India. In 1925, a Mid Day Meal Programme was introduced for disadvantaged children in Madras Municipal Corporation. By the mid 1980s three States viz. Gujarat, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and the UT of Pondicherry had universalized a cooked Mid Day Meal Programme with their own resources for children studying at the primary stage By 1990-91 the number of States implementing the mid day meal programme with their own resources on a universal or a large scale had increased to twelve states.
In September 2004 the scheme was revised to provide cooked mid day meal with 300 calories and 8-12 grams of protein to all children studying in classes I – V in Government and aided schools and EGS/ AIE centres. In addition to free supply of food grains, the revised scheme provided Central Assistance for (a) Cooking cost @ Re 1 per child per school day, (b) Transport subsidy was raised from the earlier maximum of Rs 50 per quintal to Rs. 100 per quintal for special category states, and Rs 75 per quintal for other states, (c) Management, monitoring and evaluation costs @ 2% of the cost of foodgrains, transport subsidy and cooking assistance, (d) Provision of mid day meal during summer vacation in drought affected areas.
In July 2006 the scheme was further revised to provide assistance for cooking cost at the rate of (a) Rs 1.80 per child/school day for States in the North Eastern Region, provided the NER States contribute Rs 0.20 per child/school day, and (b) Rs 1.50 per child/ school day for other States and UTs, provided that these States and UTs contribute Rs 0.50 per child/school day.
In October 2007, the scheme has been further revised to cover children in upper primary (classes VI to VIII) initially in 3479 Educationally Backwards Blocks (EBBs). Around 1.7 crore upper primary children were included by this expansion of the scheme. From 2008-09 i.ew.e.f 1st April, 2008, the programme covers all children studying in Government, Local Body and Government-aided primary and upper primary schools and the EGS/AIE centres across the country. The calorific value of a mid-day meal at upper primary stage has been fixed at a minimum of 700 calories and 20 grams of protein by providing 150 grams of food grains (rice/wheat) per child/school day.
During the year 2009 the following changes have been made to improve the implementation of the scheme:-
Food norms have been revised to ensure balanced and nutritious diet to children of upper primary group by increasing the quantity of pulses from 25 to 30 grams, vegetables from 65 to 75 grams and by decreasing the quantity of oil and fat from 10 grams to 7.5 grams.
However, the Cooking cost (excluding the labour and administrative charges) has been revised from Rs.1.68 to toRs. 2.50 for primary and from Rs. 2.20 to Rs. 3.75 for upper primary children from 1.12.2009 to facilitate serving meal to eligible children in prescribed quantity and of good quality .The cooking cost for primary is Rs. 2.69 per child per day and Rs. 4.03 for upper primary children from 1.4.2010.The cooking cost will be revised by 7.5% from 1.4.2011.
The honorarium for cooks and helpers was paid from the labour and other administrative charges of Rs.0.40 per child per day provided under the cooking cost. In many cases the honorarium was so little that it became very difficult to engage manpower for cooking the meal. A Separate component for Payment of honorarium @ Rs.1000 per month per cook- cum-helper was introduced from 1.12.2009.Honorarium at the above prescribed rate is being paid to cook-cum-helper. Following norms for engagement of cook-cum-helper have been made.
One cook- cum-helper for schools up to 25 students. (ii) Two cooks-cum-helpers for schools with 26 to 100 students. (iii) One additional cook-cum-helper for every addition of upto 100 students.
Today, Midday Meal scheme is serving primary and upper primary school children in the entire country.