Mom?s the word in Andhra Pradesh

We may all have hated the idea as children but it is true that mom knows best. This is what the mid-day meal scheme in Andhra Pradesh shows. While the scheme covers children up to the primary level only throughout the country, in Andhra, even upper primary school children get a healthy meal, thanks to the involvement of mothers, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Published on: Feb 19, 2007, 24:43:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, Kurnool (Andhra Pradesh)

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We may all have hated the idea as children but it is true that mom knows best. This is what the mid-day meal scheme in Andhra Pradesh shows. While the scheme covers children up to the primary level only throughout the country, in Andhra, even upper primary school children get a healthy meal, thanks to the involvement of mothers. And the food is better than the stuff indifferent hands ladle out elsewhere.

The mothers are members of 67,000 self-help groups and serve nutritious food to over 62 lakh children every day. It is no easy task but according to Education Secretary V Krishaniah, there have just been three complaints about the quality of food in one whole year. What’s more, “the effective implementation of the scheme has resulted in the dropout rate falling from 42 lakh in 2003-04 to 24 lakh in 2005-06”.

The change is all too evident in schools in Orvakal mandal in Kurnool. The Mandal Mahila Samakhya — a federation of SHGs — is responsible for the implementation of the scheme; the members are mostly mothers of primary school students. So far, they have provided cooking utensils to 37 schools. The SHGs provide loans to the mothers whenever needed so the scheme does not suffer. “After all, it is our children who are going to suffer if they don’t get fresh, quality food,” says a member.

But most mothers say there is scope for improvement and the Rs 2 provided for each child is not nearly enough. “We wish we could add more items to the lunch. The Rs 2 is not even sufficient for the dal and curry we give with the rice, which is free,” says a member at Pudicerla primary school.

One of the reasons why the scheme is such a success is because those involved are always looking at ways to better it. The government recently started a pilot project to mark student attendance by taking their fingerprints. “There is suspicion the attendance rate is jacked to claim more money,” Krishaniah says.

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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