Students enjoy rice served with egg in the midday meal in one of the government schools. (File Photo)
Morung Express News
Dimapur | June 2
Nagaland has a bad history of implementing the midday meal scheme. The school meal programme started as a Central scheme has encouraged widespread corruption in the state. Instances of corruption on the supply side, quality and quantity of meals provided to school children has become common. Records attained from a non-profit organisation Youth Net, indicates that the midday meal scheme is a failure in Nagaland.
From March 2009 to March 2010, the Food Corporation of India allotted 998 metric tons to the Government of Nagaland quarterly. Calculated in bags, the government received 19,960 bags of rice every three months. If distributed equally to all the districts, each got approx 1814 bags of rice quarterly. Each bag contains 50 kilos of ‘grade A’ rice raw, one of the finest qualities, according to FCI officials. But by the time the bags of rice reaches the schools, both quality and quantity is reduced. During the social audits carried out by Youth Net, most schools complained that the rice was not even fit for human consumption and sometimes fed to pigs. Moreover the quantity of rice per bag was drastically reduced to 25 to 30 kilos.
Officials in the department of Education justify that the quantity of rice is reduced to make up for the transportation expenditures. But with the excuse of transportation fees, the department is taking undue advantage of the situation, a member of the social audit team in Youth Net said. It is suspected that the quality of rice is also substituted in the process of distribution. The discrepancy in the scheme has become excessive and children are denied the right to food, the member said.
It may be mentioned that following a Supreme Court order in 2004, the Government of India began contributing towards transportation costs, additional to the free food grains. The Central government contributes a sum of Rs.1.50 per child towards cooking cost, on the condition that the state government contributes at least 50p per child. The scheme was recently expanded to also cover children in the upper primary schools.
A department official said that it is practically impossible to meet the requirements of the scheme of one meal every day. However, the department was trying its best to provide midday meals as frequently as it can, the official added. Interestingly, most schools get only one mid-day meal throughout the year. In the interior regions, many schools don’t get cooked food and are given raw rice to take home. The department source said that also due to rising food prices the government is facing a crisis in proper implementation of the midday meal scheme.
Even since the department of Education became communitised, implementation of schemes related to the department is carried out by the Village Education Committee. On most occasions the VEC blames the department, but it is evident that corruption has seeped in at all levels.
