Joginder Singh, IPS(Retd)
What was greatly admired by UN agencies and World Bank, India’s Mid Day scheme, as most effective initiative to improve child nutrition and school enrollment has run into controversy due to apathy, mismanagement, no accountability and above all greed and corruption.
It all started with Bihar, where 29 students of the Government schools, died after taking mid day meals and over 6 dozen have fallen sick. The midday meal served to students contained poisonous pesticide, that was five times deadlier than the standard product sold in the market.
Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) scientists found the toxic pesticide in the samples of oil, from the plastic container, food remains on the platter, and mixture of rice with vegetables on an aluminum utensil found at the cooking site of the school. An inquiry conducted by the Bihar Government has held the principal responsible for the deaths, due to gross negligence.
It is believed that the Principal of the School, a lady had allegedly forced the cook to use the oil despite the latter’s complaint that it had a pungent smell. The bodies of the children have been buried right in front of the school and locals have made it clear they would not allow the school to function again.
The Director of the midday meal in the State, said the school in the village would be merged with the nearest middle school having a better Mid Day meal infrastructure. He also added that Government had taken a policy decision not to run schools from rented and dilapidated structures and equip new units with full-fledged kitchens.
It is the typical case ,of locking the stables after the horses have fled away. It is amazing that the Government wakes up, after a ghastly tragedy to make good the deficiencies, confirming the suspicion, that the powers that be, can get away with the murder or in this case child murders and pass on the blame on the lower functionaries or the opposition parties.
What were the functionaries at the supervisory level, and immediate superiors of the headmasters were doing? Did they ever check, the quality of the food grains or other food stuffs, and utensils supplied?
At the national level, it would be worthwhile, to check up as to in how many in schools, such incidents have taken place and were any instructions issued, about quality of the ingredients used in the preparation of the midday meal scheme.
A tragedy of a big enormity, takes place, and the Bihar Chief Minister and Education Minister say, that it is a conspiracy against the Government by the BJP and RJD. It only proves once again that politicians will always blame, their opponents, for the failure of governance.
According to a report at least Rs 700 crore allocated for the midday meal scheme and around Rs 1,000 crore earmarked for upgrading Government hospitals, is either lying unspent, or there was no proper documentation of how it was spent.
This is apart from the Rs 462 crore meant for the Mid Day meal scheme that Bihar returned to the Centre.
As if to salve its conscience and cover its negligence in not having a mechanism put in place, to ensure that healthy and properly cooked food is served to the children, the Bihar Government has announced a grant of Rs. 2 Lakhs to the next of the kin of the deceased.
But in all fairness, why blame only Bihar, the same story is repeated all over the country.
Nearly 100 students belonging to Neyveli Lignite Corporation Higher Secondary School in Cuddalore district, in Tamil Nadu, fell ill on 17th July, 2013, after consuming the mid-day meal and were rushed to hospitals.
Like all Governments, the Tamil Nadu Government has ordered an inquiry.
It is a usual ploy to order an inquiry, as if the Government did not know, what is wrong with the implementation of the otherwise excellent scheme.
Umpteen inquiries have been ordered into the matters relating to the food grains and food matters, but nothing has come out, as the thinking of the decision makers is not clear and focused. To cut a long story short, there is hardly any State, which has been free from such maladies.
Our country, despite being a food surplus country, has still not been able to curb food grain wastage. A report reveals that each year, wheat equivalent to Australia’s annual grain production is wasted in India. As compared to this Australia has: 0.75% of grain wasted.
21 million tonnes of wheat worth R 50,000 crore is lost every year, or 24% of 2012-13 output. 88.31 million tonnes of wheat was produced by India in 2012-13.
India continues to be the second largest producer of wheat, yet it ranks 65 out of 122 countries on the World Hunger Index of 2012. The Global Survey report says that 42% of children in India are underweight and it’s the home to the largest number of undernourished people in the world: a blaring 216 million. The cruel irony is that 75% of the Indian population suffers from hunger and malnutrition in varying degrees.
Rotting food problem is not something new. It is going to last for ever, as there is hardly any punishment worth the name in the India, to anybody, who enters the Government service.
It is for the simple reason, that no Government has the guts or will to sack the indifferent, corrupt and criminals, as all the rights belong to the criminals and not the victims. But no Government takes steps. to build in the budget and implementation of any scheme, the preventive and punitive measures, so that such contingencies do not arise.
All State Governments, and above all Bihar, can learn from each other and copy the good points.
The Bihar school tragedy has spurred the Karnataka Government into restarting its exercise of checking the quality of mid day meals, as well as to have quality audit on ingredients and vegetables and conducting random checks on schools, to ensure that the children are served the best plate of food rich in nutrition.
It has made it compulsory that students should not be served meal until two teachers of the school.
The Government will launch a new scheme to look into infrastructure issues that include storage facilities, kitchens and quality drinking water.
It will have a special team comprising of nutritionist, food inspector, dietician, doctor and members from drug-testing laboratories, to ensure the best quality of food for the children.
The Government should remember that whose who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. The past cannot be changed, forgotten or erased, but the lessons learnt from it, can prepare us for a better tomorrow.
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