The much hyped central kitchen scheme to provide hot nutritious food to the students of government schools in the plain districts of the state under Mid Day Meal (MDM) scheme has met with bureaucratic hurdle. The scheme, ‘the Akshay Patra Yojana’ ( APY) was launched with a much fanfare in the state in February 2018 when a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was reached between the Hans Foundation and the education department. Under the project modern centralised kitchens were to be set up in the districts of Haridwar, Dehradun, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital. Interestingly even after more than a year, the department is yet to finalise land for kitchens in Haridwar and Nainital districts. In Dehradun where two kitchens are proposed, the district administration has finalised place for a kitchen in Suddhowala area but no place has yet been found for the second kitchen. In Udham Singh Nagar , the administration has provided a piece of land but here the work is yet to start. It is learnt that the much acclaimed scheme is facing problems due to the delay in release of budget by the Hans Foundation.
When contacted, the Deputy Secretary, education ( Basic) Dinesh Chandra Joshi said that the process of the opening of the centralised kitchens for the MDM is currently going on.
Under the scheme semi-automated kitchen would be built. These kitchens would have Chapati making machine which can produce over 20000 Chapatis in an hour. Cauldrons with capacity to cook more than 30000 litres of dal and 6000 litres of rice per day would be set up.
The mid-day meals scheme is a crucial intervention in the education system which ensures that children are retained in school and that they are able to make better use of the benefits afforded by the government schools for furthering their education.
The Hans foundation is at present serving MDM to the students in Vrindavan district of Uttar Pradesh (UP).
The APY is at present being successfully implemented in many states like Madya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Apart from relieving teachers from the task of preparing the MDM, the APY is economical to the government as it has to spend a big sum on preparing MDM in the schools.