Lucknow, Aug 6 (Inditop.com) The association of village heads of Uttar Pradesh has threatened to stop the distribution of midday meals in primary schools because they can no longer pay for the cooking with the Rs.2.50 they get per child. And they haven’t even been paid this amount for a long time.
The Pradesh Gram Pradhan Sangh (PGPS), as the association is called, says this Rs.2.50 per student, called “conversion cost”, is a two-year-old rate and inadequate to cover the cost.
Out of this Rs.2.50, “40 paise per head is given to the cook and the remaining Rs.2.10 is utilised in buying sugar, oil, vegetables, milk, spices, etc. It is now impossible to arrange food,” said R.K. Singh, head of Pinhat Miranpur Pinvat village near the state capital.
The midday meal scheme is the world’s largest nutritional support programme, under which primary school children get free lunch in government-run schools all over India. Food grains are given free to the schools.
Despite this, over 30 percent of primary schools in Uttar Pradesh have not been successful in starting the scheme till now and a similar number of schools serve food only twice a week, R.K. Singh said.
“The supply of poor quality food grain also adds to our woes,” he added.
A couple of days ago, over 50 children in villages of Siddharth Nagar district fell ill after consuming their midday meal. Seven are still being treated in the district hospital.
The Basic Education Department of the state blames the State Midday Meal Authority (SMDMA) for the drawbacks in the scheme.
“We had sent our recommendations to increase and release the conversion cost on time to the authority a long time back and the file is gathering dust. We keep following up the matter but with no success,” an official of the department said on condition of anonymity.
The authority, however, claims that the funds and food grains are released on time.
“The conversion cost of July to September and the food grains have been sent to all the districts and the central government has also agreed to increase the conversion cost after the recommendation of the state government. We hope that the conversion cost will be increased soon,” Santosh Kumar, additional director of SMDMA told Inditop.
Besides, most of the districts of the state are yet to receive a report from village heads about how the money allotted to them has been spent to provide midday meals for children, he added.
“We are making additional efforts to make the scheme more effective,” said the official.
