A Central Government committee has detected various gaping holes in the way the midday meal (MDM) is being served to the students in the schools across the State.
The Centre’s MDM committee, which inspected 42 schools of West and East Singhbhum districts from October 21 to October 30, has also said that the irregular monitoring of the scheme by the State Government has made the programme difficult to be implemented in the State.
The committee was sharing its findings at a State-level workshop here, which was attended among others by State HRD Minister Geetashree Oraon.
“Children dislike eating the same rice, dal and vegetable in lunch on daily basis. Serving them khichdi or tamarind rice on alternate days can be a healthy idea to attract more number of students,” said KK Sharma, advisor to the Central government’s MDM programme.
Adding further he said, “About 50 percent of the schools have no record for utilization of pulses, oil, vegetables and other ingredients. Due to delay in fund release, the cooking cost is utilized for payment of cook cum helpers. This leads to non-availability of food grains.”
Accepting the loopholes, Geetashree said, “It is important to serve tasty and nutritious food to the school children. Our main concern is to take every possible step for mental and physical growth of children. Afterall, MDM is a matter of child rights.”
The meeting was also attended by district education officers (DEOs), block education officers (BEOs), mukhiyas, NGOs, school management committee and Saraswati Vahini members. The recommendations of the discussion will be included in the State Government policy related to MDM.
According to Sharma, most of the State Government schools do not have MDM cooks and lack proper kitchen set up. Moreover, their team has found no clear cut defined role of panchayat members to run the MDM scheme in Jharkhand.
For this reason, Geetashree has given a proposal to the cabinet listing involvement of community representatives with the MDM programme. “The primary school teachers are not keen to manage the MDM with Saraswati Vahini people. Besides, involvement of panchayat members and villagers in food preparation, we seek to associate physical training instructors of schools so that the cultural and sports activities are encouraged along with meal facilities,” she maintained.
Geetashree has decided to organize a weekly meeting of panchayat and BEOs followed with a monthly review meet of DEOs for MDM management. “Atleast, 15 schools must be inspected every month by DEOs. In return, regional education officers must keep a watch on how many schools have been inspected by DEOs every month,” suggested state primary education deputy director SK Mishra.
Mishra stated that the student enrollment in Santhal Pargana schools covered under MDM scheme is below 50 percent.