The Hindu : `Impact of meal scheme yet to be gauged'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 19, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

`Impact of meal scheme yet to be gauged'

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD Feb. 18. The Minister for School Education, M. Venkateswara Rao, said here today that the dropout rate of children in schools had become virtually nil but the impact of the recently-launched mid-day meal programme in improving attendance remains to be seen.

Making a statement in the Assembly on Tuesday, Mr. Rao said that the Government would attach special emphasis to tackling the problem of irregular attendance in schools now that the rate of retention had improved to 99 per cent in primary, 96 per cent in upper primary and 100 per cent in high schools.

The Minister, who was replying to a discussion under Rule 304 on the mid-day meal scheme, did not concur with the suggestions of members to further revise the budgetary provision of Rs. 2 a day per child in schools with less than 50 children, Rs. 1.75 (51 to 100 children) and Rs. 1.50 (more than 101 children). He said Tamil Nadu was spending only Rs. 0.56 per child with the remaining amount going towards administrative costs.

Mr. Venkateswara Rao admitted that there was a considerable time lag between the Supreme Court's direction (September 2001) and the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme. He attributed this to the Government's keenness to see that there were no major problems in its implementation. Officials were sent to at least four States to study the best practices.

The Minister said the mid-day meal scheme, aimed at improving the enrolment and retention of schools, was targeted to cover 75 lakh children in 70,000 schools across the State and provide them a minimum of 300 calories and 8 to 12 grams of protein on each working day.

It was being currently implemented in 22 districts by self- help groups, community-based organisations and NGOs. The food was being cooked with the use of LPG in 55 per cent of schools and this facility would be extended to all schools very soon with the help of Hindustan Petroleum.

In Hyderabad, the scheme would be formally launched on February 20. Naandi Foundation, a non-profitable voluntary body which had been entrusted the task of implementation, had started trial runs since February 11. About 2 lakh children would be supplied noon meals in the Twin Cities.

The annual expenditure on the scheme was estimated at Rs. 500 crores with the State Government meeting half the expenditure and the Centre giving 2.30 lakh tonnes of rice. He said the present scheme was quite different from the one launched by the Congress Government in 1982 when N. T. Rama Rao was about to enter politics. It was a community-owned and monitored programme, he said, and urged all political parties to support it.

Initiating the debate earlier, P. Raghunatha Reddy (TDP) said more philanthropists would come forward with donations for the noon meal scheme if income tax exemption is available for the donations.

A Congress member, N. Raghuveera Reddy, criticised the Government for shoddy implementation and quoted the Deputy Speaker as saying that the rice was unfit for consumption even by cattle. G. Ramakrishna Reddy (BJP), Nomula Narsimhaiah (CPI-M), Asaduddin Owaisi (MIM), G. Uma (TDP) and M. V. Mysoora Reddy (Congress) also participated in the debate.

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