Mothers in midday meal scheme

Getting a healthy meal to each kid in schools in Andhra Pradesh is now a reality, courtesy the mothers, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Published on: Feb 16, 2007, 17:07:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, Kurnool

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Getting a healthy meal to each kid in schools in Andhra Pradesh is now a reality, courtesy the mothers. Unlike rest of the country, where the scheme is till the primary level, the state serves food to children till upper primary level --- that is class VII.

Serving nutritious food to over 62 lakh children every day with the help of 67,000 Self Help Groups (SHGs), is no way an easy task. In a year, state’s education secretary V Krishaniah says there have been just three complaints about bad quality of food served. “The effective implementation of the scheme has resulted in drop out rate falling from 42 lakh in 2003-04 to 24 lakh in 2005-06,” he added.

A visit to schools in Orvakal mandal of Kurnool district can showcase how the change has been brought about by the world’s biggest midday meal scheme for school children.

Mandal Mahila Samakhya, a federation of Self Help Groups of women, has taken upon itself the responsibility of implementing the scheme. The members of the group are mostly mothers of the children studying in primary schools.

Spending Rs one lakh from the interest on their investment, they have provided cooking utensils to 37 schools in the Mandal. The SHGs also provide loans to mother groups whenever needed so that the scheme does not suffer. “After all it is our children who are going to suffer if they don't get fresh and good quality food,” explained a member of the group.

But most members of SHGs said that the Rs two provided for food for each kid is not sufficient. “We wish we could add more items to the school lunch. I think an amount of two rupees is not sufficient even for the dal and curry we give in addition to the rice which is supplied free of cost,” said a woman cooking sambhar at Pudicerla primary school.

While Krishaniah says there has been no study to state that the nutrition level in children has improved because of the scheme, the mothers’ believe there has been marked improvement in their children’s health. “We don’t have to worry for at least one good meal for my boy,” said Radhinamma, who cooks food at Sudhimeta primary school.

Now, the state government is looking at technology for effective monitoring of the scheme. A pilot project for marking student attendance by taking fingerprints has been started in a few schools. “There is always some suspicion that the attendance rate is jacked to claim more money under the mid-day meal scheme. Through the pilot project we want to see whether the attendance being shown is real or not,” Krishaniah said.

Email Chetan Chauhan: chetan@hindustantimes.com

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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