Mid Day Meal- Blessing or a Curse?

Prelude:

What is the Mid Day Meal Scheme?

The Midday Meal Scheme is the school meal programme in India, started in the 1960s. It involves provision of free lunch on working days in schools.
Facts:

• Mid Day Meal is given to around 19 lakh primary and upper primary school students.
• Scheme covers around 3000 schools
• 46 centralized kitchens supply food to these schools.
• 83% samples failed to pass the quality test in 2012-13

Why do we always look at the hind side of anything? There has been so much criticism about the 'Mid Day Meal scheme' in news and debates all over the country after the Bihar Mid Day Meal tragedy broke out. Everybody seems to be bashing the political lobby for their bogus schemes.  What we fail to realize is that the policy framework is not faulty, but there are certain loopholes in the implementation of it, viz- the process of quality check.

Times of India went ahead to state that:

"Make teachers taste midday meal before serving it to students."

Now that coming as a solution from a leading daily of this country tells something about education of the journalist who wrote it and the editor who gave it his consent.

I am not a policymaker and I'll keep myself away from an act of probing into the policy formulations and its nitty-gritty. Nevertheless , I'd like to bring certain facts to light that will help in developing a neutral perspective of things. Since 1960's, mid day meal has brought about a tremendous change in various aspects of nutrition and the associated benefits of women empowerment through employment,  improved socialization among children belonging to all castes, addressing malnutrition and the most desired objective of increase in the enrollments of students. Despite the success of the program, child hunger as a problem persists in India. According to current statistics, 42.5% of the children under 5 are underweight. 

Coming back to the Bihar issue, we need to understand where the problem lies in order to eradicate it. PK Shahi, the state education minister, said that a "preliminary investigation" indicated that the food was contaminated with an organophosphate. One senior education official stated: "We suspect it to be poisoning caused by insecticides in vegetable or rice."

Whatever the reason may be, there can be no denying of the fact that there have been unfair practices in the Distribution of contract of the Mid Day Meal. Moreover, a major chunk of the huge funds that is allocated to various states is returned back to the center after it lies idle in banks for years. Instead of getting carried away by the ongoing blame-game, we need to work towards bridging the gap between the legislative sanctions, executive orders and the actual implementation of the aforementioned at the grass root level by the school fraternity so that life and health of our children is ensured.

PS: Here's a nice video by FirstPost that I'd like to share. It provides a very balanced outlook of the efficacy and the challenges of the scheme:

Sources:

The Hindu

Wiki

Times of India