We’re serving food, in schools, says Govt

If the Delhi Govt had provided midday meal to all children, it should have lifted its entire foodgrain quota of 21,900 tones for the year 2007-08.

Updated on: Jun 13, 2008, 24:35:13 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Even though the Delhi government had claimed it has lifted only 51 per cent of the foodgrains allocated to it by the HRD ministry, it maintained to have supplied hot, cooked meal to 100 per cent children enrolled in primary schools in Delhi. This despite the fact that 35 per cent of the foodgrains lifted has gone down as waste, as reported by the Hindustan Times on Thursday.

But the state government’s claim had fallen flat in the wake of an internal assessment done by the HRD ministry. The assessment showed only 85 per cent children in MCD schools, 13 per cent in Delhi government schools and one per cent in NDMC schools had availed midday meals during the period.

Multiple contradictions have came into fore in an assessment done by Ravi Ramachandran, a Deputy Secretary in the ministry. Delhi Education minister Arvinder Singh Lovely refused to comment on the contradictions.

Ramachandran’s assessment was based on the Delhi government’s claim that all the foodgrains lifted were utilised, meaning all schoolchildren enrolled in primary level in Delhi had availed the scheme on all working days. “It meant there was 100 per cent attendance in primary schools in Delhi last year, which is not possible,” said a HRD ministry official.

Moreover, if the Delhi government had provided midday meal to all children, it should have lifted its entire foodgrain quota of 21,900 tones for the year 2007-08. In actual, it was able to lift only 51 per cent of the quota, thereby creating the contradictory position. The department-wise analysis on December 2007 found MCD had lifted 50 per cent, Delhi government 55 per cent and NDMC 44 per cent.

To add further on suspicion that something is grossly wrong in the midday meal scheme in Delhi, the HRD ministry found that against 51 per cent foodgrains lifted, the cooking cost was claimed only for 41 per cent foodgrains.

“Ideally, the percentage utilisation of cooking costs and foodgrains should tally with each other. But in the UT of Delhi, the utilisation of foodgrains is 51 per cent and cooking cost is 41 per cent,” the HRD ministry told HT in a reply to a RTI application.

Further, the Centre for Study of Developing Societies, which monitors midday meal in Delhi, found discrepancies in the number of working days reported from Delhi schools. While some schools reported 202 working days others reported 216 days, the Centre has told the HRD ministry. The Centre also said the foodgrain quota fixed for each school was doubtable, thereby creating a possibility of pilferage.

The HRD ministry has also found discrepancy in the number of children availing midday meal in Delhi schools. While the National University Education Research and Training maintained national data on primary school enrolment said Delhi had 10.43 lakh children at primary level, the state government claimed over 11.50 lakh students.

The ministry has also said about 30,000 children in out of school education centres have not been covered under the midday meal scheme.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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