The HinduFood to be monitored for quality: Students at a Patna government school eating their mid-day meal.
A proposal to revamp the Mid-Day Meal scheme includes extending the service to unaided private schools in tribal, Schedule Castes and minority dominated districts
The Mid-Day Meal scheme could be next extended to unaided private
schools in tribal, Scheduled Castes and minority dominated districts, if
a proposal by the Centre to revamp the scheme under the 12 Five-Year
Plan passes through. The revamped scheme will also cover children
studying in pre-primary classes located in the premises of primary
schools.
Moreover, in the wake of the Chhapra mid-day meal tragedy where 23
children died after consuming food laced with pesticide, the government
has asked Accreditation Board for Laboratories (NABL)-recognised
laboratories to collect the samples from the field for testing on
parameters such as microbiological presence or absence of e-coil,
chemical parameters such as moisture content, fats, proteins and
calorific value of the meals served.
“Reports are useful”
“These reports have been useful for enhancing the effectiveness of the
scheme. The State/Union Territories have also been requested to consider
engaging Food Safety and Standards Authority and the Council of
Scientific and Industrial Research institutes or NABL-recognised
laboratories for carrying out sample checking of mid-day meal, to ensure
quality meal to the children,” Union Human Resource Development
Minister M.M. Pallam Raju said while answering a question in Parliament.
Mr. Raju said that there is a detailed mechanism for supervision of the
meal scheme through periodical reports and monitoring at the local level
through the school monitoring committees as well as by the State
government officials. In addition, the Centre also ensures independent
monitoring through 41 monitoring institutes such as IIT-Chennai, Visva
Bharati University and XLRI among others. The Joint Review Missions
(JRM) visits the States at regular intervals. In the current year, seven
JRMs have been conducted; and 13 more are planned. In addition,
surprise visits are made from time to time; three such visits have been
carried out in the current year in Maharashtra, Jammu & Kashmir and
Assam.
The implementation of the scheme is monitored by the district, state and
national level steering-cum-monitoring committees. The district-level
vigilance and monitoring committee meeting under the chairmanship of the
MPs from the district has also been activated. Mr. Raju has personally
written to all MPs to ensure that the quality of meal served in schools
is good.
Norms of assistance
The Centre would also revise the norms of assistance by enhancing
cooking cost by basing the mid-day meal price index exclusively on the
basket of items.
Transportation assistance of Non-North Eastern Region States is also
sought to be raised to Rs. 150 per quintal from its existing limit of
Rs. 75 per quintal. The monthly honorarium of cook-cum-helpers would be
raised from Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 1,500 during 2013-15 and Rs. 2,000 during
2015-17.
The Management Monitoring and Evaluation (MME) rates would be revised
upwardly by three per cent of the total recurring Central assistance for
the cost of food grains, cooking cost, transportation assistance and
honorarium to cook-cum-helpers.
Similarly, revision of norms for Central assistance for the procurement
of kitchen devices for new schools and replacement of kitchen devices
after five years of their sanction would be increased to Rs. 15,000 per
school. This would be shared between the Centre and the State in the
ratio of 75:25 except for the NER States where the sharing would be in
the ratio of 90:10.
Meanwhile, the HRD Ministry and the Ministry of Tourism are working
together on training master cooks engaged under Mid-Day Meal scheme.
Training master cooks
The Ministry of Tourism has agreed to provide training to selected
cook-cum-helpers as master trainers through Hotel Management Institutes
and the Food Craft Institutes (FCIs). A ten-day full time course will be
organised that will include knowledge dissemination regarding the
caloric and nutritive values, the methods of cooking for retaining the
nutritive value of cooking ingredients, awareness regarding the issues
of malnutrition and also the benchmarking of nutrition levels and the
importance of regular washing of hands.
