Schools reopen, but kids go hungry

Two days on, they’re still waiting.

The children have been left in the lurch because the Education Department is yet to clear the file sanctioning orders to mid-day meal suppliers.

Under a Supreme Court directive, provision of one free home-cooked school meal is a legal entitlement for primary school students. And the effect of the mid-day meal in implementing the government’s flagship programme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has been crucial — encouraging students from economically weaker sections to attend school.

Probing the matter, Seema Agarwal, a principal at government-aided Gujarat Senior Secondary School in Rajniwas Marg, rang up her meals provider, V K Sharma.

Having worked as a contractor for the Delhi Government’s Directorate of Education (DoE) for the last four years, Sharma was supplying meals to 11 schools in north-east Delhi. But without any instruction from the Directorate this last week, his work has been paralysed.

“Once I get the sanction, I can deliver the food within 24 hours, but I’ve received no order,” said Sharma, who estimates that his kitchen feeds approximately 4,800 students.

Across the city, Razia Begum, principal of Sarvodaya Kaniya Vidyalaya 1 in Gandhinagar is facing the same problem. “No meals since July 1,” she said. “The student strength is still low, as admissions are on. We have about 800 children in Classes I-VIII. We were waiting for the meals these past few days,” she said.

At Victoria Senior School, Rajpur Road, Government Sarvodaya Co-Education Senior Secondary School in Kailash Enclave, Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya 3 and Bengali Senior Secondary School, it was the same story: suppliers said they had received no order from the DoE.

Ashok Agarwal, an advocate and civil rights activist, said: “This is complete negligence, a total failure in the planning and action by the government. Students come to school hoping for cooked food, thousands of children have been left hungry.”

An official from the DoE, working closely on the mid-day meals programme, revealed that the recent mandate to extend meals to students in Classes VI-VIII has put pressure on the existing infrastructure and capacity. While earlier, only Classes I to V in 347 primary schools were served food, from this session, all 920 government and 221 government-aided schools are included in the programme.

“Earlier, we had 26 contractors. But over the last two months we decided to phase out small suppliers to monitor food quality, some were proving meals to as few as 70 students in only one school,” said the official.

Under revisions to the programme, approximately 14 large-scale providers each will supply meals to between 50,000 and 77,000 students. And semi-automated kitchens, equipped with puri-making machines, steam boilers and potato peelers, for instance, will be compulsory for each contractor to reduce contamination caused by manual processing.

According to the official, delay in supply of the mid-day meal is due to late clearance by the DoE.

“The file should be cleared any day now. Suppliers are ready and once approval is granted, meals will be ready for delivery within 24 hours.”

Education Secretary Rina Ray, however, said: “We inspected a school in RK Puram today. I believe many schools are receiving the mid-day meal.”