Several teachers at UT’s government schools are having trouble implementing the Midday Meals programme.
The central government’s funded Mid-day meal programme, which was introduced in 1995, offers lunch to government schools up to the eighth grade.
Teachers expressed their concerns to Rising Kashmir, claiming that the administration had set the cost of the midday meal programme for each kid at a very low level and that food inflation was rendering the programme ineffective.
The cost of preparing a midday meal was last revised in 2020. It was raised from ₹4.48 to ₹4.97per student per school day for primary classes 1 to 5, and from ₹6.71 to ₹7.45for upper primary courses 6 to 8.
The Chief Education Officer Srinagar, Mohammad Shabir said that the rates have been fixed by the government. “The rates come from the center and its same across the India. UT has no role to revise the rates on their own,” he said.
Talking about the pending dues of teachers, he said, “we have projected that already. Once the funds will be released, their pending dues will be released too,” he added.
As per a government teacher, “if you want to deliver better meals to students, you have to spend more money,” yet the government appears to believe otherwise. The government should reconsider the expense of cooking. The cost of all food goods has risen, while the government’s allocation remains meagre. We are unable to supply students with substantial and healthy food on a daily basis.”
The high price of food has left schools struggling to procure ingredients for cooking mid-day meals. Though rice grains are made available free by the authorities but the school finds it difficult to buy vegetables and other ingredients.
“The scheme has been going on from a decade across India but is not yet streamlined. We manage to provide an egg once in a week. Underprivileged kids come to school for the mid-day meals. If we don’t provide them quality, they will suffer as their nutritional needs will not be fulfilled,” said a teacher who is also a mid-day meals in-charge.
For the current year 2023-24, the PM-Poshan scheme earlier known as Mid Day Meal programme has been allocated Rs 11,600 crore while in previous year (2022-2023), Rs 12,800 crore was allotted to it.
The scheme was started in the schools to address the classroom hunger of the students, to enhance their concentration in the class and increase enrollment.
“The scheme has attracted most of the students belonging to the poor families towards schools. When good food won’t be provided to kids, they would leave the school and opt for some meager job,” said a teacher.
He said that meals are cooked as per the meal chart but the less expenditure makes them to compromise. “We get the fortified rice from the authorities but we have to buy cooking gas, cooking oil, vegetables, pulses, eggs. We don’t compromise on quality but in terms of quantity we have to do,” he said.
While taking to some students, Asrar, a student said, “We are given an egg once in a week. Rice with either pulses or vegetables are most of the times served. Once in a while, on special events, we are served chicken and rice. My parents go to out for work and there is no one at home to pack me a tiffin box so I am served food here.”
The MDM in-charges said that the authorities are yet to clear the dues of previous year. “The schools get expenditure for the scheme almost after a year. Till then the in-charge has to spent the expenditure from their pocket. The liabilities should be cleared so that the teachers aren’t put under stress,” he said.
