July 23, 2009. Not a historic day to remember but yet a day we should not forget. Not a day important because it marked rolling out of some ‘grand’ welfare scheme of government but deserves a mention because it proved why the government run welfare scheme called Mid-day meal is worst taken care of.
A seven-year-old student - Afsari Parveen died on the day in most tragic way. A student of Government middle school at Kolhya Kanandu village under Pithoria police station she fell into vessel of the hot pulse meant to serve students of the school in MDM. No care takers thought it was their duty to protect the poor girl from getting trapped into the hot vessel. The child died later during the course of treatment.
Many minor incidents (refer to the list alongside) happened earlier wherein students got ill after consuming contaminated MDM. Many ill-datelines drawn out of contaminated MDM followed thereafter.
Earlier, on June 9, 2009 around 55 children of Government primary school in Govindpur area of Dhanbad fell ill after consuming MDM which was served with a snake lying dead in it. Similarly, on September 13, 2008 at least 25 children of a Government school in Narega Village got ill after they consumed MDM with a dead lizard in it. On December 2007, 50 children of a school in Dhanbad district took ill after consuming a mid-day meal reportedly because a snake fell into the vessel.
On April 25, 2013 around 50 students of Khunti Rajkiya Madhya Vidyalaya in Jamshedpur took ill after consuming MDM which a student claimed, was contaminated when a lizard had fallen into the pulse served to them. This must have happened due to cook’s carelessness, when he forgot to cover the vessel.
The MDM scheme when launched, was touted as the Government’s meticulous effort towards increasing enrolment, retention, attendance and simultaneously improving nutritional levels among children. But with such reports happening regularly the mid-day meal appears to be reduced just into a trap!
A trap which attracts students into school—by luring them with food, a trap that befools their guardians into believing that their children are getting education and nutrition and a trap which ironically offers the concerned officials the liberty of siphoning off food grains and money into their coffers.
There are reports of block resource persons, head masters and teachers involved in embezzlement of money meant for MDM. Children are being served the MDM in most unhygienic conditions. Nobody is taking care if the vessels in which the cooked MDM are kept are covered or not.
However, despite such gloomy reports the scheme is not a failure for President of All Jharkhand Primary Teachers Association Arvind Kumar Singh. But his response was more of a clichéd than a realistic conclusion.
“This is not a failed scheme. Only thing we need to do is to raise awareness among teachers involved in MDM,” he said.