Mid-day meal program in schools-Management misdeeds!

School feeding programs world across are considered a win-win situation because it is supposed to attract children from low income population to the schools facilitating the objective of universal literacy besides improving the health of these school going kids. No doubt it is a noble thought and its success, though may cast a huge economic burden on the national budget, can bring in qualitative transformation of the society at large. But the crucial question is whether such programs are efficiently managed or not? From time to time we do hear about many complaints regarding mishaps, some minor and others major, affecting the safety of the beneficiaries. Ever since the idea of school lunch program was mooted there was a debate whether the food should be made and served hot within the school premises or pre-prepared foods in sealed packs should be distributed and even to day this issue has not yet been settled. However the trend seems to be to equip all the schools with the necessary infrastructure to cook the foods in the schools themselves. Though many observers had pointed out the dangers and pitfalls inherent in a gigantic arrangement like this, government seems to have decided to encourage school cooking and massive funding is being proposed to set up or upgrade the infrastructure needed. It is against this background one has to read the latest report of the CAG, placed in the Parliament which makes a sad commentary on the efficiency and seriousness with which this program is managed at present. Read further below: 

"The quality of food served in schools under the Mid Day Meal Scheme continues to remain poor across the country, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) said in a report tabled in parliament on Friday. The report raised many red flags such as over-reporting of enrolment figures, financial indiscipline, poor quality of means and inadequate meals. "Cases of cooking of poor quality meals in unhygienic conditions, inadequate and poor quality of infrastructure in terms of kitchen sheds and utensils were rampant across all states exposing children to health hazards," it said. Launched in August 1995 to boost education by increasing enrolment, retention and attendance simultaneously impacting on the nutrition levels of children, the Mid Day Meal Scheme was extended in 2008-09 to students of upper primary classes. The scheme is currently operational in 27 states and seven union territories. According to the report, the Food Corporation of India did not serve the best quality of rice in Uttar Pradesh schools. It said there were several complaints of poor quality meal cooked by Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Development Corporation Limited which is engaged in cooking for schools in Chandigarh. According to the report, the prescribed nutrition to children was not provided in schools of at least nine states, including the national capital. In Delhi, samples of cooked food of the 37 service providers during the period 2010-14 were tested by the Sri Ram Institute of Industrial Research. "Out of the 2,102 samples, 1,876 (89 percent) failed to meet the prescribed nutrition standard," the report said. The report showed a consistent decline of enrolment of children in the Mid Day Meal Scheme from 14.69 crore in 2009-10 to 13.87 crore in 2013-14. Declining trends in enrolments during 2009-10 to 2103-14 were observed across the country in states such as Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Lakshadweep and Puducherry. The report also observed that the checks to ensure quality of meals and adequacy of nutritional value of food served to children remained only on paper. The inadequate monitoring of the scheme by the human resource ministry and the states was a major bottleneck in implementation. The funds earmarked for monitoring and evaluation had been grossly underutilized, the report cited."

Though there would be some slip ups in any program of this size, not doing enough to improve upon the existing practices cannot be condoned, especially when we are dealing with school kids who will be tomorrow's citizens. To realize that almost 90% of the samples tested by independent assessors failed the standards laid down for making the foods is indeed shocking. Added to this the enrolment of children to schools is showing a declining trend raising the critical question as to why this is happening at all? The blame game will go on for some time with no one willing to accept the responsibility as passing the buck is a favorite game in this country!  Look at the Parliament and the abominable behavior of the law makers and even a kid can get disgusted because these so called representatives of the people have no time to consider matters affecting the citizens and their children, wasting their time on personal bickerings and narrow political agenda. Probably switching back to packed foods with standard and safe standards may be the only answer. With food technology organizations like CFTRI , DFRL and NIFTEM, all public funded agencies, why not the government demand a time bound development mission to come up with a dozen RTE food products with diverse tastes and long adequate shelf stability that cannot be diverted to open markets? This will ensure adequate safeguards for quality, quantity, safety and accountability.   

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

TEACHERS REFUSE TO BE MEAL MANAGERS TOO- THE BIHAR TRAGEDY AFTERMATH

The chicken has come to roost at last vis-a-vis the food contamination episode in Bihar as more than 300000 teachers across the state have revolted against the State government for the insinuation made by one of the ministers that the incidence was a conspiracy to defame the government! Will any self respecting teacher continue to work any more for the government under such circumstances? After all teachers are forced to undertake management of the feeding program being carried on under most primitive conditions over and above the teaching responsibility for which they are appointed and paid for! The babus and politicians take the credit when any government program is lauded while the blame for any mishap is passed on to the low paid workers like teachers in the present case. With the teachers on the war path what option the so called progressive government now ruling will have to continue the program? Will the school meal program be abandoned as the minister concerned has thrown up his hands in despair? What is most disgusting is the implied insinuation that kids were deliberately poisoned for political gains by the opposition political parties! That means the school teachers have no integrity and humaneness in carrying out the diabolical plan with the support of some politicians to murder 23 kids in broad day light! Here is a take on this latest turn of events in Bihar where the ruling party has no time for development work, spending most of its time in its political maneuver to become a shiny model of secularism in the country, whatever that means!

"A week after the death of 23 children from eating a contaminated mid-day meal in Saran district, teachers are in no mood to assist the government in running the scheme. "It was unanimously decided at a meeting of the Bihar State Primary Teachers' Association to boycott the scheme," its president, Barajnandan Sharma, told IANS. "We had repeatedly requested the government in writing to involve teachers in academic work only and employ some agency for the scheme, which was ignored. Teachers should not be burdened with all kinds of non-academic work," he said. Teachers are blamed for anything that goes wrong with the scheme, Sharma said, adding: "It is giving a bad name to teachers due to rampant corruption." He said that it is a well-known fact that teachers and headmasters have to invariably manage the mid-day meal scheme with third-grade food stuff and corruption at every level. "Top to bottom, officials have information about it. But when something happens, a teacher or headmaster is solely blamed for it despite the fact that there are several officials involved in it," he said. Refering to the Saran tragedy, Sharma said: "There may be some mismanagement. Even human error cannot be ruled out. But putting the blame on teachers even before an inquiry has completed surprised us." In the wake of teachers' decision to boycott the scheme, Bihar Education Minister P.K. Shahi said it was difficult to arrange for an agency to run the scheme in 72,000 schools across the state. "The government does not have the resources to hire an agency for the huge task of serving mid-day meals to 1.60 crore students," Shahi said".

The minister has no business to lament about the helplessness of the government in continuing with the program of feeding 16 million kids every day after making the allegation of sabotage in the poisoning episode. Did he not think about the consequences of his irresponsible uttering about sabotage? If the state government does not have the ability to continue with the program why not stop it right now and think of other alternatives to reward the kids for showing their face in the school. Both the governments at Delhi and in the states will have to bear the responsibility for the latest tragedy because they were cornering all the credits being showered on the country by international agencies for "running" the largest "feeding" program in the world! When will the government of India wake up to the reality that schools are not meant to cook foods and teachers cannot manage such hot food programs without affecting the quality of education? There is no other alternative, whether one likes it or not, to supplying processed packaged foods, ready to eat, prepared by established manufacturers with guaranteed quality and safety. Government of India must wake up to this reality before more such tragedies as that happened in Bihar are repeated over and over again across millions of schools in the country.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

THE KILLING SCHOOLS OF INDIA-MIDDAY MEAL TRAGEDY IN BIHAR

Can the ruthless politicians and arrogant bureaucrats hear the wailing of parents in Chhapra, Bihar after the latter lost their most precious possessions-their tender children? In stead of apologizing for their callousness and unconscionable guilt for not preventing an avoidable tragedy, they are bickering among themselves regarding the culprits for this ghastly man created tragedy and it is a shame on the education minister in that state to imply openly that these children were deliberately poisoned by his opponents! Where is the moral high grounds usually taken by honest administrators when inefficiency and neglect on their part cause such fatal episodes under their care?  This Blogger recently raised the most crucial question in one of his Blogs regarding the suitability of schools to cook safe and nutritious foods and highlighted the dangers posed by ill-equipped teaching shops in undertaking food cooking. (Please refer to http://vhpotty.blogspot.in/2013/06/schools-in-india-are-they-meant-for.html). To receive such a news within a matter of few days of publishing the above piece is shocking indeed! If the recent public debate on this issue in one of the English Channels is closely followed one can realize that such episodes occur fairly frequently with the governments least concerned about its impact on innocent children of this country being subjected to such grave risks by sending to killer schools like the one in Chhapra. Here is a take on the Chhapra episode.  

"21 children have died as a result of the free lunch they were served in that school yesterday.  Officials say it appears that the meal of lentils, vegetables and rice was contaminated with insecticides; a forensic report is due later this evening. Another 30 children remain ill in hospital in Chhapra, some of them lying listless on stretchers, intravenous drips attached to their tiny arms. "My children had gone to school to study. They came back home crying, and said it hurts," one distraught father told NDTV.  "I took them into my arms, but they kept crying, saying their stomach hurt very badly." As weeping parents mourned, political parties delivered stunning responses.The ruling Janata Dal United said it is being targeted  by "a deep-rooted conspiracy." Spokesperson KC Tyagi said, " The way the opposition of Bihar is responding, I feel that it is a big conspiracy. They want to destabilise the Bihar Government."  he BJP, which was booted out last month from a 17-year partnership with the Janata Dal United, backed some locals who said that  officials took too long to organise ambulances for children after they fell violently ill at school. It took 15 hours to evacuate the children. This is criminal negligence and the state government is responsible for this," said Rajiv Pratap Rudy of the BJP".

The sum and substance of the stand taken by this Blogger was that most schools are ill-equipped in terms of facilities, spare time and skilled personnel required to cook decent foods and therefore there must be a rethinking on the present policy of the government to serve "hot foods" which carries with it grave risks to the lives of tender children being sent by their parents to receive basic education. Packed foods manufactured by established food processing industrial units, standardized to contain the optimum levels of essential nutrients, are far more preferable though there could be an element of monotony in terms of taste factors. But this is not a problem which cannot be solved provided reputed food research agencies and nutrition experts join hands to evolve a basket of products with impeccable credentials which can be prepared in the schools with minimum risks before feeding the children. One of the Parliamentary Committees  of the very same government recommended packed foods three months ago which was irresponsibly ignored! Is there some substance in the argument that politicians of all hues and colors are least interested in the well being of children going to government schools because their own children go to fancy schools paying enormous fees for their education? It is for people to brood over such an allegation and act appropriately during the election time!    

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

  

RESTAURANT TYPE FOODS FOR SCHOOLS AND ANGANWADIS-A TN BONANZA!

India is considered one of the front line countries in applied nutrition programs benefiting millions of kids and vulnerable women through its schools and Anganwadis, spread all over the country. While school feeding programs are intended mainly to attract kids from low income families as a part of universal literacy policy of the nation, Anganwadis and other special feeding centers serve to augment the nutritional level of daily diets which are considered not satisfactory as per the health norms set by experts. After experimenting with instant food products which do not need any further cooking in the school premises for a number of years, it was Tamil Nadu which started the "freshly cooked" meals program for providing hot foods using locally procured raw material. Several other states followed this example and the responsibility was shared by the government agencies and many women based voluntary organizations. The ISKON organization is reported to be the largest agency to day in India in terms of number of meals served through organized central kitchens and well managed distribution logistics. Recent announcement made in Chennai by the CM of TN provides interesting reading regarding the ambitious goals of the government in making the beneficiaries extremely happy by providing the much needed variety for serving such meals. Here is a take on this new development.

"Thirteen varieties of rice and four types of egg 'masala' will soon enrich the plates of students benefiting under the nutritious noon-meal scheme of the State government, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa told the Assembly on Friday. Making a suo motu statement, she said the purpose was to break the monotony in the menu under the scheme introduced by former Chief Minister M.G. Ramchandran 30 years ago and to make them palatable. The government consulted well-known chefs and nutrition experts on this issue and 'channa biriyanai' and pepper egg were served on an experimental basis in a school in Saidapet and the Andhanallur panchayat union school in Chief Minister's Srirangam constituency. The students liked it and the chefs demonstrated 13 varieties of rice and four types of egg 'masala.' The Chief Minister said the new scheme would be introduced in one taluk in every district and depending on the feedback, this would be extended to other areas gradually.
There would be one set of menu for the first and third weeks of a month and another set for the second and fourth week.
The students would be served vegetable 'biriyani' and pepper powder egg on first and third Mondays; 'channa-pulav' and tomato 'masala' on Tuesdays; tomato rice and pepper egg on Wednesdays; rice, sambar and boiled egg on Thursdays and curry leaf rice or green (keerai) rice, egg masala and roasted potato on Fridays. The menu of second and fourth Mondays would be 'sambar' rice, onion and tomato egg 'masala'; mealmaker and vegetable mixed rice and pepper egg on Tuesdays; tamarind rice and tomato egg 'masala' on Wednesdays; lemon rice, tomato egg 'masala' and 'sundal' on Thursdays and rice, sambar, boiled egg and roasted potato on Fridays. The Chief Minister said the government would also provide a variety of dishes to the children attached to 'anganwadis' in the State. Special attention would be made to the children, considering their requirements and digestive capacity. The children would get tomato rice and boiled egg on Mondays; mixed rice and 'sundal' on Tuesdays; vegetable 'pulav' and boiled egg on Wednesdays; lemon rice and boiled egg on Thursdays; 'dhal' rice and boiled potato on Fridays and mixed rice on Saturdays and Sundays.Ms. Jayalalithaa said the new menu would increase the number of students attending school and improve their nutritional requirement"

Processed foods versus freshly cooked foods debate seems to have finally ended with most states opting for the latter though this option is fraught with very high degree of risks. Limited resources available for providing the needs of the children further restricts any choice, leaving the government with very little elbow room in designing the meals. Besides the activities such as material procurement, storage, fuel for cooking, actual cooking, serving the meals, cleaning the utensils etc all become additional burden/responsibilities for the school staff and teaching efficiency can be adversely affected. The risks of food poisoning is also very high requiring ever vigilant overseeing of the operation. Also debatable is the assumption that all children will eat the food and possibility of wastage also is high. Inclusion of egg is another uncertain move which may have some unforeseen reaction from vegetarian population among the kids. Ideally it is preferable that ready to serve foods are used for such massive operations and here is where the ingenuity of food scientists becomes crucial. The fresh food option now being used in many states may not be the last word on the subject and one has to wait and see the experience arising out of the present decision.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com