CAG slams mid-day meal implementation

The office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has rapped the state government over the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme.

The CAG report stated that schools in the state were using packaged food items like cooking oil and condiments even after these had expired. Furthermore, it stated that there had been a decrease in enrolment of children in government-aided local body schools in 2014-2015 over 2010-11 despite provision of mid-day meals.

Also, 97 per cent of the samples of cooked meals lifted from the central kitchens in the city failed to meet the calorific value and protein content prescribed under the mid-day meal scheme. There were substantial delays in the release of funds for the scheme to the districts, blocks and schools.

On an average,66 per cent of the 269 selected schools in the state did not provide cooked meals to the children on all school days. There were inadequacies in payment of cooking expenses to non-governmental organisation International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) during 2010-15, the report said.

The mid-day meal scheme is a Centre-sponsored scheme that is intended to boost the universalisation of primary education by increasing enrolment by promising to improve the nutrition levels of students in primary and upper-primary classes.

The report further said that teachers and school management committee members of government schools in the state did not regularly taste mid-day meals during 2014-15. There were shortfalls in training and health check-ups of cooks-cum-helpers.

It was found that schools in the state were using packaged food items like cooking oil and condiments even after these had gone past the expiry dates.

Despite several anomalies in the quantities of rice that were lifted by ISKCON and 288 other central kitchens for the children in primary and upper-primary schools in the city, the Maharashtra government did not review the situation, the report stated.

“The monitoring of the scheme was rendered weak due to district level committees not being set up and flying squads not being established,” the report stated.