The Mid Day Meal Programme in India - Term Paper Example

? Introduction Hunger and illiteracy are the world’s two biggest curses today marring development and resulting in millions of deaths. According to the Global FoodBanking Network (2009), India is regarded as one of the hungriest nations of the world with around 212 million undernourished people. The country also ranks 168 out of 171 in the list of measuring public health. This leads to approximately 1 million deaths in India every year and wastage of almost 1 percent of the GDP. Amongst international school feeding programs, Mid Day Meal programme in India caters to millions of people find food. However, this does not fulfill the requirement of a national food banking programme. Initiating from Tamil Nadu in the year 1960s, the programme now has taken a huge form and is operating in all primary and government aided schools. In the sections to follow, pros and cons of the policy are discussed with a justifying case and future recommendations. Background to the Mid Day Meal Scheme The background to the Mid Day Meal programme in India was set when Tamil Nadu’s Former Chief Minister K. Kamaraj asked a small boy the question, “Why are you herding the cows? Why don’t you go to schools?” and he replied, “If I go to school, will you give me food to eat? I can learn only if I eat.” (Akshaya Patra n.d) This innocent answer by the child set the stage for the introduction of Mid Day Meal with its first operations in Tamil Nadu. The programme was covered under the aegis of National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) and implemented as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme across the nation on August 15th, 1995. Elated with the positive response for the scheme in terms of school enrollments, retention and reducing hunger, the Supreme Court of India passed the following mandate in November 28, 2001, “We Direct the State Governments/ Union Territories to implement the Mid Day Meal scheme by providing every child in every Government and Government assisted Primary School with a prepared mid day meal.” (Akshaya Patra n.d) The provisions of the scheme were revised in the year 2004 covering children of class I-V and comprised of following provisions (India Government 2010): Cooking cost @ Re 1 per child per school day, Transport subsidy raised from Rs. 50 to Rs. 100 per quintal, Management costs @ 2% of the cost of grains, subsidy and assistance and Supplying mid day meal to drought affected areas during summer vacations. Again in the year 2006 revisions were made related to the calories counts and per child cost was increased to Rs. 1.80. Revisions regarding other nutritional contents are shown below in the table. Nutritional Content Norm as per NP-NSPE 2004 Norm as per NP-NSPE 2006 Calorie 300 450 Protein 8-12 12 Micronutrient Not prescribed Folic acid, Iron, Vitamin C, etc. Source: (India Government 2010) Objectives of Mid Day Meal Scheme The Mid Day Meal scheme in India serves three major purposes (India Government 2010) of: 1. Improvising upon the nutrition of children studying in class I-V in Government, state, local bodies and other government aided schools. 2. Bringing children of disadvantaged sections to schools by encouraging them to attend school regularly and allowing them focus on classroom activities through hunger elimination. 3. Providing support in the form of nutrition to undernourished children of primary level in drought affected areas during the summer vacations. Monitoring and control The supervision of the Mid Day Meal Scheme is jointly undertaken by the Department of School Education and Literacy and Ministry of Human Resources Development. The overall control mechanism comprises (India Government 2010): Local level supervision The monitoring of cleanliness, timely procurement and distribution, wholesomeness and equity is done by members of local Panchayats and Gram Sabha representatives on a periodic basis. Transparency of information The Right to Information Act requires schools and centers to display complete information regarding quality, quantity, menu, number of children served and other necessary details to ensure accountability and transparent functioning. Inspections A school where MDM is implemented is to be inspected by officers of Revenue, Education, Women and Child Development and other associated departments on a quarterly basis. Supervision of availability of food grains The Food Corporation of India (FCI) is entrusted with the task of ensuring the availability of right quality and quantity of food grains to the schools through Zonal nodes. Regular returns The concerned State government is required to submit periodic returns of coverage, progress and other details of the scheme to the Department of School Education and Literacy. Benefits attained Mid Day Meal programme has been phenomenal in attracting and retaining children to schools and also increasing the enrollments. Also, positive impacts on nutrition and learning have also been visible. Major benefits and achievements of the programme are detailed as below: Impact on nutrition level In a research conducted by Young Lives of the impact of MDM on draught affected children by comparing the change in their height-and –weight-for-age between the year 2002 and 2006-7, the following results were obtained after conducting regression analysis and other statistical techniques (Young Lives 2010). The above results depict the positive effects of mid day meal scheme on draught affected areas, both in terms of height and weight. This research leads to the conclusion that the third objective of the scheme is getting fulfilled. Educational and social benefits Educationally, the Mid Day Meal programme has made the learning environment more fun and friendly by removing the morning hunger of children coming empty stomach to schools. Socially too, the programme has infused sense of equity, hygienic eating habits and socialization aspects in children. Caste discrimination has also been done away with to a greater extent as children of castes and creed sit together and eat. Supporting income The programme had been especially helpful to BPL (Below Poverty Line) families who could not arrange for a square meal for their children. Now most of the families’ remark that meal provided in schools has reduced their burden of feeding 2-3 children at least once a day. This way, they are able to make better use of the meager income they earn. Benefits for women Working women who had to feed their children at school times or were forced to send their children empty stomach have been relieved by this scheme. Also, women are preferred over men for cooking and distribution which has provided employment to many of these. Table below shows figures of parents support for MDM in a research conducted in Delhi region. Source: Samson et al. 2007 Attendance, enrollment and retention of children Enrollment count has increased especially of less privileged groups. Also, higher enrollment has been visible in case of girls which is a positive sign towards girl education programme. With this programme, there have been lesser instances of children going early to home after school and it has been observed that now children spend at least first half of the day at school. Source: Samson et al. 2007 Challenges ahead Challenges in any initiative make it seem impossible in the beginning but also present opportunities to better the proposition. In the case of Mid Day Meal Programme, various challenges are being encountered by the volunteers as well as the policy makers and dynamic market and international forces intensify those challenges. Some of the obvious challenges are enlisted below: Inflationary pressures Inflation in the national and international economy has been ever rising and successive governments had made plans in black and white to regularly enhance the budget and schedule of the Mid Day Meal programme accordingly. However the efforts seem hollow as inflationary pressures are directly affecting the quantity of food being served to the children. Also, compromises with quality are also being done to save on extra costs. This makes the task difficult to provide meal to thousands of children amidst school feeding guidelines and tension between governments. Below average quality standards In the year 2002 when the policy was initialized, there were no proper utensils, kitchen infrastructure, cooks or other supplementary services like water available. This resulted in a below average meals supplied to the children. Also, corrupt practices like pilfering grains by storage authorities concerned and presenting inflated records failed the purpose of the scheme. Several instances of worms and dirt found in meals raised hygiene and micronutrient components concern. The situation was managed well by putting up infrastructure in place, utensils and access to clean drinking water and other basic amenities which were considered adequate from hygiene point of view. After handling this, Mid Day Meal is now emphasizing on introducing zinc and other supplementary components like Vitamins in the meals. This step is obviously recommendable, however, commercial and governmental pressures have to be bore and potential benefits of such inclusions need to be established. Compromise with teaching time When improvements and addition of supplements are being thought of, it is necessary to ensure that teachers are not made to distribute the cooked food and arrange for it. This will lead to loss of teaching time without any extra benefit to the teachers and losses occurring in learning process will be greater than nutrition gained by children. As remarked by a teacher during a survey in Rajasthan, “managing the MDM to around 100 students is like managing a wedding lunch everyday”. Issue of universalization India is a diverse country with small cities, towns and thousands of villages. Though the Supreme Court had made the Mid Day meal programme universal in the year 2001, yet there are still many villages and places where people either do not know about this initiative or the local government has not started it. Kolkata serves as the best example here where the scheme is still non-operational despite central governments running most of the primary schools. Discrimination Caste discrimination is one of the shameful practices of India which was objected by Mahatma Gandhi also. The aftermaths of this practice are visible in this programme where instances of upper class cooks replacing Dalit cooks happen very often. Though orders have been passed requiring the State Governments to give preference to Dalit cooks to raise the discrimination bar, yet the practice is separating Dalit children from the main stream programme. Voice of children being ignored Though not a political issue, but children prompted the inclusion of eggs in the Mid Day Meal programme in a survey. However, tussles exist between religious communities which manage the programme and demands of children. Further, nutritional content provided has also to be taken care of. In this light, fruits like banana and other are being served in Tamil Nadu to compensate for eggs. However, question arises as to whether the voice of children will be accounted for when the entire programme is meant for them only. Supplement or complement? One stark issue raising head is whether parents are seeing the initiative as complementary or supplementary to the feeding of children. It is very important to ensure that parents do not stop feeding their children at home due to the fact that children are getting cooked meal at schools. If this happens, the entire programme will go in vain. Justifying the case Defying all the negatives and challenges confronted, the success of Mid Day Meal Scheme can be justified with the help of Kurnool experience in Andhra Pradesh state of India. Implemented in the year 2003 by women self help group named Mandal Mahila Samakhya, the programme is giving hot cooked meals to children of government schools including primary and upper levels in the state (Paul n.d). The allocated budget to the district for the academic year was Rs. 10, 25, 00, 000 in which Rs. 9, 00, 00, 000 have been disbursed (Paul n.d). Table below shows the rise in enrollments and children receiving meals from year 2003 to year 2007. Source: http://pib.nic.in/archieve/flagship/pf_mdm1.pdf The menu at the schools comprises vegetable pulao, lemon rice, khichidi, curd rice, sambhar, tamarind rice, pooris and banana or egg twice a week. With the MDM programme, significant changes in dropout rates, learning abilities of children and retention levels have been achieved in positive terms. Also, reduced teacher absenteeism and gender inequalities have also been achieved with MDM programme (Paul n.d). Conclusion Despite reverberating criticisms, Mid Day Meal programme has been successful in increasing the enrolled count of students and also its favorable impact on nutritional diet provided to draught struck children. However, path to success is still filled with many obstacles in which corruption and non-supportive government attitude forms the priorities. Such shortcomings can be done away with the help of self-help groups and local Panchayats handling the programme and its activities. Example of Meghalaya puts forth inclusion of weekly diet menu under the programme in printed form at the last page of children’s notebooks and marking the meals can provide an easy way of determining absents and regularities. Greater involvement of parents in monitoring the supply, quantity and quality of meals will add feathers to this scheme and will bring accountability in the whole system. Last but not the least, public awareness and periodic audits of the progress of programme will establish milestones and make the Mid Day Meal world’s biggest and successful school feeding programme. Works Cited “Country Projects: India”. The Global Food banking Network. 2009. 15 January 2011 < http://www.foodbanking.org/work/country/india/ >. “India’s Mid Day Meal Scheme”. Akshaya Patra. 15 January 2011 < http://www.akshayapatra.org/indias-mid-day-meal-scheme>. “Mid Day Meal Scheme”. India Government. 7 April 2010. 15 January 2011 < http://india.gov.in/sectors/education/mid_day_meal.php>. Paul, Rajinder. “Mid Day Meal Programme in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh”. 15 January 2011 < http://pib.nic.in/archieve/flagship/pf_mdm1.pdf> Samson, Meera, Noronha, Claire and De, Anuradha. “Towards more benefits from Delhi’s Mid Day Meal Scheme”. 2007. 15 January 2011 < http://www.cordindia.com/images/Midday.pdf> “The Impact of the Mid Day Meal Scheme on Nutrition and Learning”. Young Lives. August 2010. 15 January 2011 < http://www.younglives.org.uk>. Read More