PIB: Mid day meal expanded to Class VI-VIII (172 blocks in Orissa included)
K-12 October 22nd. 2007, 1:06pmFollowing is from the PIB press release http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=32088.
The Government of India has now extended the Mid Day Meal Scheme to the Upper Primary Stage of Education (classes VI to VIII) in 3479 Educationally Backward Blocks (EBBs) in 2007-08 and areas across the country from 2008-09. The programme has been extended as per State-wise list of EBBs attached in Annexure- A. The extension to the Upper Primary Stage in EBBs has already become effective from October 01, 2007. About 1.7 crore children at upper primary will be covered.
The Government of India has released the Central assistance to the respective States for extension of Mid-Day Meal programme to upper primary stage. A sum of Rs.7324 Crores was provided in the Budget 2007-08 for the MDM Programme, representing 37% increase over the budget provision for 2006-07. The Expenditure as on 30-09-2007 is Rs.2231.12 Crores (30% of BE) including Rs. 422.94 crores towards cooking cost for upper primary stage. In addition, 3,22,785 MTs of food grain has been allocated to States/UTs for extension of coverage to upper primary stage (Annexure-B).
The Calorific value of the mid day meal has been fixed for upper primary at 700 calories and 20 grams of protein. Foodgrains @ 150 grams per child/ school day for the upper primary stage would be provided.
The cooking cost of mid day meal for upper primary stage at Rs 2.50 per child/school day with the NER States contribution being a minimum of Rs 0.20 per child/school day and for all other States and UTs, the State contribution being Rs 0.50 per child/school day.
Transport Subsidy has been enhanced for eleven Special Category States (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir & Uttarakhand) from Rs. 100 per quintal to Rs. 125 per quintal.
The Central assistance to construct kitchen-cum-store in upper primary schools would be provided @ Rs 60,000 per unit, as in the case of primary stage besides, Central assistance for kitchen devices to upper primary schools would be @ Rs 5,000 per school as in the case of primary stage.
The name of Scheme has been changed from ‘National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education’ to ‘National Programme of Mid Day Meals in Schools’.
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January 26th, 2009 at 9:24 am
There is a possibility to introduce ready to cook processed meals,which will ensure the following :
-Exact nutritional value as per the guidelines
-100% monitoring
-Max.30 minutes in cooking and completing the entire process of distribution etc.
-Easy to transport,handle and implement.
-Within the allocated budget.
In case,if Govt.has any interest,the model can be demonstrated.
regards
satyen yaadav
August 6th, 2009 at 4:16 am
Providing cooked food with the higher value will need more volume and in this case Children will eat more volume and it would make them lazy nad they will sleep during the classes.The more value will cost more money.The kind of revenue avaialble for this scheme is not enough because of high cost of raw material.This would only be possible,if poor quality food with less calorie and less ,is provided.Since,there are many channel partners in the system right from Principal of school till …..,so at every stage there is cost involved for which Deptt.of Human resource or State govt.have not made any provisions.
There is a need for a debate on National level to address the issues related to Mid day Meal.this problem can never be solved by the people working is isolation.
Ministry of Human resource and State Govt.should have a close coordination and there is need to evaluate the role of the observers nominated by Hon’ble supreme court.The pending PIl in these matters or related matters are not allowing to have a clear policies on the sponsored Nutrional Projects.
Dr satyen yaadav
September 10th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I really appreciate the steps taken by Hon’ble Union Minister for HRD, Mr Kapil sibbal to clean the AICTE and I am sure that some day he would also get the inspiration to clean up the MDMS scheme’s modus operandi.I had an opportunity in 2006 to make a presentation before him on a model for MDMS by introducing ready to cook dehydrated pre-cooked food which had all the required nutritional values as per the HRD as per the HRD norms.He appreciated a lot and included our initiatves in the cabinet summary note of DBT and strongly advocated the concept but unfortunately no state Govt.was comfortable in introducing this concept which was proven and approved by the India’s apex organization i.e.DBT’s food& nutrition division.The technology development and standardization took almost 30 months and costed Rs.15.00 crores but state govt.of Uttar Pradesh,Uttarnchal,Punjab,HP did not agree to accept the recommendations of the apex body.It was very interesting that the Hon’ble CM capt. Amrendra Singh approved a trial project in 100 schools of four Districts for 30 days and after succesful trial,it was to be implemented in the state but our highly concerned Principal Secretary of the Punjab Govt.was not convinced even after the 100% acceptance because there was no possibility for any corruption.Similary,in UP it was tried in many schools but finally rejected at the state level because the then Principal secretary was 100% convinced with Punjab govt.friend and rejected the concept and the same thing had happened in Uttarnchal.A great coordination among all the seniour officials who were responsible for the development of our country’s future i.e.children through SARVA SIKSHA ABHIYAN.
Finally,after having fed 13,00,000 children and having their satisfactory reports along with the recommemdations from more than a dozen Ministers from all these states,the three Principal secretaries of UP,Punjab and Uttarnchal could not be convinced and as a result, the highly talked project having the capacity to prepare processed food for one million children per day has been closed.Thanks to great Principal Secretaries.May GOD bless them.
Dr satyen Yaadav
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:54 pm
With ref.to the article apperaed in the issue of May 25,2009 Outlook page no 24 title “COOK IS IN” with a sub title “Renuka loses move on pacakged foods”.I would like to express myself that Ms Renuka Chowdhury’s move was the need of the hour but it has been misunderstood by our apex decision makers,who can not be right all the time.
There can never be a solution of Mid day Meal in India except introducing processed food.Hon’ble Apex court says that it will involve the corruption but what about the present situation specially in the state of Uttar Pradesh,where Mr Mulayam singh,the than CM,gave another tool for corruption to the smallest Unit Head of democracy i.e.Gram Pradhan just to pamper them for his selfish moto.He did not realize the damage of his decision because he has no other agneda except achieving his personal agenda to get more and more seats and unfortunately,it is almost impossible for any CM to annoy the Gram Pradhans ,so there is no chance to improve Mid day mael status in UP.I feel that introducing contractors of specilaized agencies who process the food as per the directives of the Govt.would be 100 times better than the corupt Gram Pradhans ,who can’t be monitored because lack of monitoring system and more over there is no system of monitoring.
DBT’s Nutrceutical Deptt.had written in their cabinet summary,sent to PMO about the initiatives taken for introducing processed food in Mid Day Meal.
The fact is that the food commissioners,appointed by Hon’ble Supreme court have not understood the options of processed foods to be included in Mid day Meal and therefore,could not present the facts properly and hence,there is a room for revision.
THE ONLY MODEL FOR IMPLEMENTING SUCCESSFUL MID DAY MEAL SCHEME IS TO INCLUDE PROCESSED FOOD,WHICH SHOULD BE PROCESSED LOCALLY AT THE DISTRICT LEVEL BY A FOOD PROCESSING ENTITY(SHG GROUP/COMPANY/NGO)AND THE FOOD SHOULD BE SERVED HOT THROUGH VILLAGE COMMITTEE CALLED “MAHILA MANDAL”.The mahila Mandals will have the satisfaction and pleasure feeding their own children by their own hands and hence,Govt.can save money on distribution and spend it for improving the nutritional value and quality of food.
at last ,I appreciate the vision and approach of Ms Renuka Choudhury and her initiative to make Mid day meal scheme ,a great success.
Dr Satyen Yaadav
The bitter truth is that it is a wastage of huge funds being given to the states under ICDS because most of the states do not have the understanding about the concept and commitment level to feed with honesty to their future citizen.The states functionaries are not able to come of their main agenda to earn money through corruption,so where is the time to think about our children,our future hope.