Mid-day meal was a noble programme meant to encourage children to attend school and raise their nutritional levels, but the scheme has been reduced to a cruel joke on the poor children.

The tragedy in a government primary school in Saran, the result of a contaminated mid- day meal, is appalling to say the least, but it will by no means be the first or the last, given the state of affairs today. Even as the death of 23 children continues to haunt students and their parents across Bihar, reports of children suffering because of bad mid- day meals surface with alarming regularity. The mid- day meal tragedy still continues in Bihar as 77 school children fell ill due to food poisoning at two schools in two districts on Wednesday. The first incident was reported from Chamandi Primary School in Arwal district and the second from a Primary School in Kalyuga village in Jammu district. Since the tragedy in Bihar, newspapers have been flush with news of insects, dead rodents, lizards and cockroaches being found in mid- day meals across the country. Recently, there were reports of lizards and rats in the food from Bhilwara and Manglore, while in Delhi the supply of mid-day meals to a Primary School was stopped after the Principal and three others were hospitalised after tasting the food. It is shocking that in certain schools, serving worm- infested food items changed only after the Bihar tragedy. The terrible incident has exposed the shocking lapse on the part of those entrusted with the task to oversee the proper implementation and monitoring of the mid- day meal scheme. Though the government talks big about economic growth and social progress, it has failed miserably to improve the basic conditions in government schools across the country from where the nation’s future generations will emerge.

The mid-day meal scheme(MDMS) has been acclaimed as a crucial welfare programme across the world. It was started to fulfil the twin purposes of improving the school attendance of primary students as well as their health. It was actually K.Kamaraj, the Chief Minister(CM) of Madras for three terms who first pioneered the mid-day meal scheme in Tamil Nadu’s Primary Schools. MGR, who was C.M. of Tamil Nadu from 1977 to 1987, expanded this scheme into “MGR’s Nutrition’s Meal Scheme” in 1982. Keeping in view its growing popularity, it was taken up as a national scheme in 1995. Then in 2001, the Supreme Court directed all state governments to introduce the scheme in primary schools. The mid- day meal scheme reportedly reaches out to almost 120 million children in schools across the length and breadth of India. But it seems that this scheme has been reduced to a cruel joke on the poor children. Its dual purpose has been ill served. Many states, despite central resources and funds at their disposal, have failed to fulfil their responsibility to not just provide wholesome mid-day meals, but to also ensure that care is taken in their preparation and distribution.

In a country where nearly half the population of children is undernourished and struggles to go to school, providing free meals bolsters school enrolment and eliminates hunger and illiteracy among the poor masses. It also enables children from diverse backgrounds to share a meal together and thus bury social prejudices. But corruption and lax attitudes of some school management have brought disrepute to the project. There are numerous reports and complaints about the poor quality of food provided to the children. Besides, an unholy nexus exists between corrupt scheme coordinators and headmasters of primary schools across the country. It goes without saying that this laudable effort, like the other fancy schemes of the congress-led UPA government is marred by corruption and shoddy implementation.

Schemes in India are often seen as being crafted to help cronies and middlemen more than the targeted groups. The Bihar tragedy brings into focus the lack of attention state governments attach to the health and well-being of children. The mid- day meal scheme costs the central exchequer almost Rs 13000 crore annually. It was introduced to benefit students belonging to the poor and underprivileged families. But the programme is not implemented in many states with the required level of professionalism. Hardly a handful of schools follow the standard menu and norms defined in the mid-day meal scheme. The practice of teachers checking the quality of food before serving it to students has been conventionally ignored. A tragedy of such magnitude points to a colossal failure to observe minimum food safety standards. The scheme as devised by HRD Ministry has a provision for monitoring, providing someone would care to implement it.

Indeed, a scheme catering to 12 crore children needs constant monitoring and accountability is essential. The tragedy is the result of poor political leadership bureaucratic apathy, utter disregard for children’s rights, negligence and corruption. Although the scheme has been lauded the world over for bringing hungry children to school, implementation leaves a lot to be desired. The shocking incident has exposed the tremendous lapse in the implementation and monitoring of the UPA government’s ambitious scheme. Although reports of students falling ill after eating mid-day meals have been common, they have not made any difference to the lackadaisical approach of those responsible for implementing the scheme. Since both the centre and the states have stakes in the scheme, it is imperative that both pull up their socks to ensure such tragedies do not recur.

The truth is that eradicating hunger and malnutrition of our children is not a public priority. The Global survey report says that 42% of children in India are underweight. Yet, the political response to this tragedy has been very disheartening, with politicians trading accusations in an ugly and unbecoming manner. While the BJP was quick to blame the Nitish government for negligence, the JDU responded with evasive, conspiratory theories. This is really a sorry state of affairs as passing on the blame is not going to fix the mid- day meal scheme or reassure parents about its safety.

Alarmed by similar complaints across the country, a high- level consultative meeting on MDMS was convened on Wednesday. It was decided that the MDMS would follow the guidelines of Food Safety and Standard Authority of India(FSSAI). HRD minister Pallam Raju also said there should be a greater convergence with organisations such as the NSS. He further added that help of Accredited Social Health Activists under the National Rural Health Mission be taken to enhance the quality of MDMS. The UPA views food security as its ticket to come back to power in the next general elections. Perhaps this is the signal to them that the devil lies in the details of implementation.