INDIA-EDUCATION: Free Meals are More on Paper

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Mahesh Uniyal

NEW DELHI, Aug 21 1996 (IPS) - A bulk of the money set aside for education in India’s present budget is for free mid-day meals for primary schoolchildren, but a recent report states that not all the money earmarked for the scheme last year was spent.

Almost a fourth of the more than 700,000 tonnes of wheat and rice, staple foods in India, allocated to the scheme were unutilised by state governments, the central Human Resources Ministry admits in an internal note.

Rising transport costs, snags in supply and poor quality of cereals were the main reasons for the failure of state governments to implement the scheme in the primary schools identified for coverage countrywide, the ministry states.

The mid-day meal scheme was introduced by the previous Congress government last year. It is supposed to tempt parents to keep their children in school, and the new government has set aside nearly half a billion dollars for it in the 1996-97 budget.

In its first year, the government spent 129 million dollars to feed 33.5 million children in 378 districts, the ministry estimates. During the current fiscal year, an extra 22 million primary school students in 475 districts are either to be fed at school or given foodgrain to be cooked at home.

“A number of states … have intimated that they could not lift the allocated foodgrains in full due to non-availability of sufficient stocks with the FCI (Food Corporation of India) godowns. A few states have drawn attention to the inferior quality of foodgrains supplied by FCI,” says the ministry note.

The note was circulated at a meeting last week in the Indian capital of education ministers from the country’s 32 states and centrally-administered areas.

“The initial response to the scheme has, however, been encouraging and some states have reported a positive impact on school enrollments,” it adds.

Launched a year ago in a village school in eastern India with former premier P.V. Narasimha Rao himself serving the children hot meals, the scheme aims to use the nation’s surplus foodgrain stocks to make schooling attractive.

It aims to increase enrollment, ensure that children stay in school and combat widespread malnutrition by making up for dietary deficiencies.

Not more than six out of 10 Indian children are estimated to complete the first five years of education. Schools without proper teaching aids and even teachers, mass poverty and discrimination against girls, are said to be main reasons.

The more than half a million government and government-aided primary schools in the country are eligible for the scheme. The goal is to provide a wholesome mid-day meal made of 100 gm of foodgrains to each child in these schools by the year 1997-98.

Where school authorities are unable to offer cooked meals, each child with an 80 percent attendance record is given three kg of wheat or rice to take home. Primary schools in only seven states and one centrally-administered area, are providing hot meals at present.

The scheme is mostly funded by the central government which provides the cereals to state governments from its stocks. States are paid 25 rupees (about 70 U.S. cents) per 100 kg to transport the grains from the nearest Food Corporation godown. The money to build kitchens for cooking the meals and salaries for the cooks are to be paid out of central government anti-poverty schemes.

However, several state governments, specially those with mountain regions, want a raise in the 70 cent-transport cost. The central government is examining the demand raised during a meeting of state chief ministers convened by Prime Minister H.D. Dewe Gowda last month.

Many states have also complained about a shortage of grain supplies at the government godowns. Some drew attention to the poor quality of cereals supplied by the Food Corporation.

To get over this, the central government has now asked the states to draw their quota of supplies once a month, instead of weekly as earlier. The Food Corporation godowns have been asked to keep samples of the grain issued for quality tests.

In most states, the foodgrain is simply given to children to take home. The central government has asked governments in states doing this to involve elected village and town councils and community groups to start kitchens in primary schools.

The central government has ambitious plans of tracking the progress of the scheme using satellite and computer-base

management information systems, which will be fed data on school enrollment, number of children covered and amount of foodgrains used.

But some educationists think the government is neglecting schemes which will have a lasting impact on pupils, pitching instead for the costly free meal programme whose real aim, they say, is to win political support for the rulers of the day.

Funds for programmes to build and equip village schools and improve their quality of instruction have either been frozen or raised marginally.